LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.]! 

ShelfJlJtfl??? 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



-■ >^4 




LANDOR'S 



THE PENTAMERON, 



ETC. 



LANDOR'S COMPLETE PROSE WORKS. 



Imaginary Conversations : 

First Series. Classical Dialogues. 

Second Series. Sovereigns and Statesmen. 

Thij'd Series. Literary Men. 

Fourth Series. Dialogues of Literary Men, Famous 

Women, and Miscellaneous. 
Fifth Series. Miscellaneous Dialogues, Continued. 

5 volumes, izmo, cloth, $10.00 ; i5mo, Oxford style, $5.00. 

The Pentameron. Citation and Examination of William Shake- 
speare, Minor Prose Pieces, and Criticisms. " i2mo, cloth, 

$2.00. 

Pericles and Aspasia. i2mo, cloth, $1.50. 



ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. 



THE PENTAMERON. 



CITATION AND EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM 
SHAKSPEARE. 

MINOR PROSE PIECES. CRITICISMS. 



WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, 

AUTHOR OF "IMAGINARY CONVERSATIONS," "PERICLES AND ASPASIA." 



Dt 



//^W 



w^' 





BOSTON: 
ROBERTS BROTHERS. 






Copyright, 1888, 
By Roberts Brothers. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 



Pagb 

The Pentameron i 

Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare : 

Editor's Preface • 141 

Examination 151 

Minor Prose Pieces: 

I. Opinions on Caesar, Cromwell, Milton, and Bona- 
parte 249 

II. Inscription for a Statue at St. Ives . . . . . 258 

III. Sir Robert Peel, and Monuments to Public Men . 259 

IV. To Cornelius at Munich 264 

V. The Quarterly Review 267 

VI. A Story of Santander 272 

VII. The Death of Hofer 283 

VIII. A Vision 286 

IX. The Dream of Petrarca 289 

X, Parable of Asabel 292 

XI. Jeribohaniah 295 

Criticisms on Theocritus, Catullus, and Petrarca : 

The Idyls of Theocritus 3° I 

The Poems of Catullus 325 

Francesco Petrarca 372 

INDEX 411 

Note. — This volume, "Imaginary Conversations" (five volumes), 
and " Pericles and Aspasia " (one volume) comprise Landor's Complete 
Prose Writings. 



LANDOR'S WRITINGS. 

They are unique. Having possessed them, we should 
miss them. Their place would be supplied by no others. 
There is hardly a conceivable subject in life or literature 
which they do not illustrate by striking aphorisms, by 
concise and profound observations, by wisdom ever ap- 
plicable to the needs of men, and by wit as available for 
their enjoyment. Nor, above all, will there anywhere 
be found a more pervading passion for liberty, a fiercer 
hatred of the base, a wider sympathy with the wronged 
and the oppressed, or help more ready at all times for 
those who fight at odds and disadvantage against the 
powerful and the fortunate, than in the writings of 
Walter Savage Landor. 

JOHN FORSTER. 



THE PENTAMERON ; 



INTERVIEWS OF MESSER GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO 
AND MESSER FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 

WHEN 

SAID MESSER GIOVANNI LAY INFIRM AT HIS VILLETTA HARD BY 
CERTALDO ; 

AFTER WHICH THEY SAW NOT EACH OTHER ON OUR 
SIDE OF PARADISE: 

SHOWING HOW THEY DISCOURSED UPON THAT FAMOUS THEOLOGIAN 

MESSER DANTE ALIGHIERI, 

AND SUNDRY OTHER MATTERS. 

EDITED BY PIEVANO D. GRIGI. 



THE EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. 



Wanting a bell for my church at San Vivaldo, and hearing that 
our holy religion is rapidly gaining ground in England, to the un- 
speakable comfort and refreshment of the faithful, I bethought my- 
self that I might peradventure obtain such effectual aid from the 
piety and liberality of the converts as wellnigh to accomplish the 
purchase of one. Desirous, moreover, of visiting that famous nation 
of whose spiritual prosperity we all entertain such animated hopes 
now that the clouds of ignorance begin to break and vanish, I re- 
solved that nothing on my part should be wanting to so blessed a. 
consummation. Therefore, while I am executing my mission in re- 
gard to the bell, I omit no opportunity of demonstrating how much' 
happier and peacefuUer are we who live in unity than those who, 
abandoning the household of Faith, clothe themselves with shreds, 
and warm themselves with shavings. 

Subsidiary to the aid I solicit, I brought with me, and here lay 
before the public, translated by the best hand I could afford to 
engage, " Certain Interviews of Messer Francesco Petrarca and 
Messer Giovanni Boccaccio, etc.," which, the booksellers tell me, 
should be entitled " The Pentameron," unless I would return with 
nothing in my pocket. I am ignorant what gave them this idea of 
my intent, unless it be my deficiency in the language, for cer- 
tainly I had come to no such resolution. Assurances are made to 
me by the intelligent and experienced in such merchandise, that 
the manuscript is honestly worth from twenty-five to thirty fran- 
cesconi, or dollars. To such a pitch hath England risen up again, 
within these few years, after all the expenditure of her protracted 
war! 

Is there any true Italian, above all is there any worthy native of 
Certaldo or San Vivaldo, who revolveth not in his mind what a sur-' 
prise and delight it will be to Giovanni in paradise the first time 
he hears, instead of that cracked and jarring tumbril ( which must 



X THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

have grated in his ear most grievously ever since its accident, and 
have often tried his patience ), just such another as he was wont to 
hear when he rode over to join our townspeople at the\r fes^aP 
It will do his heart good, and make him think of old times ; and 
perhaps he may drop a couple of prayers to the Madonna for whoso 
had a hand in it. • 

Lest it should be bruited in England or elsewhere, that being in 
my seventieth year I have unadvisedly quitted my parish, " fond 
of change," to use the blessed words of Saint Paul, I am ready to 
show the certificate of Monsignore, my diocesan, approving of my 
voyage. Monsignore was pleased to think me capable of under- 
taking it, teUing me that I looked hale, spoke without quavering, 
and, by the blessing of our Lady, had nigh upon half my teeth in 
their sockets, while, pointing to his own and shaking his head, he 
repeated the celebrated Hnes of Horatius Flaccus, who Hved in the 
reign of Augustus, a short time before the Incarnation, — 

" Non ebur, sed horridum 
Bucca dehiscit in niea lacuna ! " 

Then, turning the discourse from so melancholy a topic, he was 
pleased to relate from the inexhaustible stores of his archaeolo- 
gical acquirements, that no new bell whatever had been consecrated 
in his diocese of Samminiato since the year of our Lord 1611 ; in 
which year, on the first Sundaj'- of August, a thunderbolt fell into 
the belfry of the Duomo, by the negligence of Canonjco Malatesta, 
who, according to history, in his hurry to dine with Conte Geronimo 
Bardi, at our San Vivaldo, omitted a word in the Mass. While he 
was playing at bowls after dinner on that Sunday, or, as some will 
have it, while he was beating Ser Matteo Filicaia at backgammon, 
and the younger men and ladies of those two noble families were 
bird-catching with the civetta, it began to thunder; and, within the 
evening, intelligence of the thunderbolt was brought to the Can- 
onico. On his return the day following it was remarked, says the 
chronicler, that the people took off their caps at the distance of only 
two or three paces instead of fifteen or twenty, and few stopped 
who met him ; for the rumor had already gone abroad of his omis- 
sion. He often rode as usual to Conte Geronimo's, gammoned Ser 
Matteo, hooded the civetta, limed a twig or two, stood behind the 
spinette, hummed the next note, turned over the pages of the 
music-book of the contessine, beating time on the chair-back, and 
showing them what he could do now and then on the viola di 
gamba. Only eight years had elapsed, when, in the flower of his 
age (for he had scarcely seen sixty), he was found dead in his bed, 
after as hearty and convivial a supper as ever Canonico ate ! No 
warning, no olio santo, no viaticuf/i, poor man ! Candles he had ; 
and it was as much as he had, poor sinner! And this also hap- 



THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XI 

pened in the month of August ! Monsignore, in his great liberah'ty, 
laid no heavy stress on the coincidence ; but merely said, " Well, 
Pievano! a Mass or two can do him no harm, — let us hope he 
stands in need of few more; but when you happen to have leisure, 
and nobody else to think about, prythee clap a wet clout on the fire 
there below in behalf of Canonico Malatesta." 

I have done it gratis, and I trust he finds the benefit of it. In 
the same spirit and by the same authority I gird myself for this 
greater enterprise. Unable to form a satisfactory opinion on the 
manuscript, I must again refer to my superior. It is the opinion, 
then, of Monsignore that our five dialogues were written down by 
neither of the interlocutors, but rather by some intimate, who loved 
them equally. "For," said Monsignore, "it was the practice of 
Boccaccio to stand up among his personages, and to take part him- 
self in their discourses. Petrarca, who was fonder of sheer dia- 
logue and had much practice in it, never acquired any dexterity in 
this species of composition, it being all question and answer, — 
short, snappish, quibbling, and uncomfortable. I speak only of his 
" Remedies of Adversity and Prosperity," which indaed leave his 
wisdom all its wholesomeness, but render it somewhat apt to cleave 
to the roof of the mouth. The better parts of Homer are in dia- 
logue; and downward from h-'m to Galileo the noblest works of 
human genius have assumed this form : among the rest I am sorry 
to find no few heretics and scoffers. At the present day the fashion 
is over; every man pushes every other man behind him, and will 
let none speak out but himself." 

The "Interviews" took place not within the walls of Certaldo, 
although within the parish, at Boccaccio's villa. It should be noti- 
fied to the curious, that about this ancient town, small, deserted, 
dilapidated as it is, there are several towers and turrets yet standing, 
one of which belongs to the mansion inhabited in its day by Ser 
Giovanni. His tomb and effigy are in the church. Nobody has 
opened the grave to throw light upon his relics ; nobody has painted 
the marble; nobody has broken off a foot or a finger to do him 
honor; not even an English name is engraven on the face, al- 
though the English hold confessedly the highest rank in this de- 
partment of literature. In Italy, and particularly in Tuscany, the 
remains of the illustrious are inviolable; and among the illustri- 
ous, men of genius hold the highest rank. The arts are more po- 
tent than curiosity, more authoritative than churchwardens: what 
Englishman will believe it ? Well, let it pass, courteous strangers ! 
ye shall find me in future less addicted to the marvellous. At 
present I have only to lay before you an ancient and (doubt it not) 
an authentic account of what passed between my countrymen, 
Giovanni and Francesco, before they parted forever. It seemed 
probable at this meeting that Giovanni would have been called away 
first, for heavy and of long continuance had been his infirmity; 



XU THE EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. 

but he outlived it three whole years. He could not outhve his 
friend so many months, but followed him to the tomb before he had 
worn the glossiness off the cloak Francesco in his will bequeathed 
to him. 

We struggle with death while we have friends around to cheer 
us : the moment we miss them wq lose all heart for the contest. 
Pardon my reflection ! I ought to have remembered I am not in 
my stone pulpit, nor at home. 

Prete Domenico Grigi, 

Pievano of San Vivaldo. 

London, October i, 1836. 



THE PENTAMERON. 



Boccaccio. Who is he that entered, and now steps so silently 
and softly, yet with a foot so heavy it shakes my curtains ? 

Frate Biagio ! can it possibly be you ? 

No more physic for me, nor masses neither, at present. 

Assunta ! Assuntina ! who is it ? 

Assunta. I cannot say, Signor Padrone ! he puts his fin- 
ger in the dimple of his chin, and smiles to make me hold 
my tongue. 

Boccaccio. Fra Biagio, are you come from Samminiato for 
this ? You need not put your finger there. We want no se- 
crets. The girl knows her duty and does her business. I have 
slept well, and wake better. \Raising himself up a little. 

Why ! who are you ? It makes my eyes ache tp look aslant 
over the sheets ; and I cannot get to sit quite upright so con- 
veniently ; and I must not have the window-shutters opener, 
they tell me. 

Petrarca. Dear Giovanni, have you then been very unwell? 

Boccaccio. Oh, that sweet voice ! and this fat friendly hand 
of thine, Francesco ! 

Thou hast distilled all the pleasantest flowers and all the 
wholesomest herbs of spring into my breast already. 

What showers we have had this April, ay ! How could you 
come along such roads ? If the Devil were my laborer, I would 
make him work upon these of Certaldo. He would have little 
time and little itch for mischief ere he had finished them, but 
would gladly fan himself with an Agnus-castus, and go to sleep 
all through the carnival. 

Petrarca. Let us cease to talk both of the labor and the 
laborer. You have then been dangerously ill? 



2 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. I do not know ; they told me I was ; and truly 
a man might be unwell enough who has twenty masses said for 
him, and fain sigh when he thinks what he has paid for them. 
As I hope to be saved, they cost me a lira each. Assunta is a 
good market-girl in eggs and mutton and cow-heel ; but I 
would not allow her to argue and haggle about the masses. 
Indeed, she knows best whether they were not fairly worth all 
that was -asked for them, although I could have bought a winter 
cloak for less money. However, we do not want both at the 
same time. I did not want the cloak : I wanted them, if 
seems. And yet I begin to think God would have had mercy 
on me if I had begged it of him myself in my own house. 
What think you? 

Petrarca. I think he might. 

Boccaccio. Particularly if I ofifered him the sacrifice on 
which I wrote to you. 

Petrarca. That letter has brought me hither. 

Boccaccio. You do then insist on my fulfilling my promise, 
the moment I can leave my bed ? I am ready and willing. 

Petrarca. Promise ! none was made. You only told me 
that if it pleased God to restore you to your health again, you 
are ready to acknowledge his mercy by the hplocaust of your 
" Decameron." What proof have you that God would exact it ? 
If you could destroy the " Inferno " of Dante, would you? 

Boccaccio. Not I, upon my life ! I would not promise to 
bum a copy of it on the condition of a recovery for twenty 
years. 

Petrarca. You are the only author who would not rather 
demolish another's work than his own, especially if he thought 
it better : a thought which seldom goes beyond suspicion. 

Boccaccio. I am not jealous of any one : I think admiration 
pleasanter. Moreover, Dante and I did not come forward at 
the same time, nor take the same walks. His flames are too 
fierce for you and me : we had trouble enough with milder. 
I never felt any high gratification in hearing of people being 
damned ; and much less would I toss them into the fire myself. 
I might indeed have put a nettle under the nose of the learned 
judge in Florence when he banished you and your family ; but 
I hardly think I could have voted for more than a scourging to 
the foulest and fiercest of the party. 



THE PENTAMERON. 3 

Petrarca. Be as compassionate, be as amiably irresolute, 
toward your own " Novelle," which have injured no friend of 
yours, and deserve more affection. 

Boccaccio. Francesco ! no character I ever knew, ever 
heard of, or ever feigned, deserves the same affection as you 
do ; the tenderest lover, the truest friend, the firmest patriot, 
and, rarest of glories ! the poet who cherishes another's fame 
as dearly as his own. 

■ Petrarca. If aught of this is true, let it be recorded of me 
that my exhortations and entreaties have been successful in pre- 
serving the works of the most imaginative and creative genius 
that our Italy, or indeed our world, hath in any age beheld. 

Boccaccio. I would not destroy his poems, as I told you, 
or think I told you. Even the worst of the Florentines, who 
in general keep only one of God's commandments, keep it 
rigidly in regard to Dante, — 

" Love them who curse you.' 

He called them all scoundrels, with somewhat less courtesy 
than cordiality, and less afraid of censure for veracity than ad- 
ulation ; he sent their fathers to hell, with no inclination to 
separate the child and parent, and now they are hugging him 
for it in his shroud ! Would you ever have suspected them 
of being such lovers of justice ? 

You must have mistaken my meaning; the thought never 
entered my head : the idea of destroying a single copy of 
Dante ! And what effect would that produce ? There must 
be fifty, or near it, in various parts of Italy. 

Petrarca. I spoke of you. 

Boccaccio. Of me ! My poetry is vile ; I have already 
thrown into the fire all of it within my reach. 

Petrarca. Poetry was not the question. We neither of us 
are such poets as we thought ourselves when we were younger, 
and as younger men think us still. I meant your " Decameron," 
in which there is more character, more nature, more invention, 
than either modern or ancient Italy, or than Greece, from 
whom she derived her whole inheritance, ever claimed or ever 
knew. Would you consume a beautiful meadow because there 
are reptiles in it ; or because a few grubs hereafter may be 
generated by the succulence of the grass ? 



4 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. You amaze me : you utterly confound me. 

Petrarca. If you would eradicate twelve or thirteen of the 
" Novelle," and insert the same number of better, which you 
could easily do within as many weeks, I should be heartily glad to 
see it done. Little more than a tenth of the " Decameron " is 
bad ; less than a twentieth of the " Divina Commedia " is good. 

Boccaccio. So little? 

Petrarca. Let me never seem irreverent to our master. 

Boccaccio. Speak plainly and fearlessly, Francesco ! Malice 
and detraction are strangers to you. 

Petrarca. Well, then, at least sixteen parts in twenty of the 
" Inferno " and " Purgatorio " are detestable, both in poetry and 
principle : the higher parts are excellent indeed. 

Boccaccio. I have been reading the " Paradise " more re- 
cently. Here it is, under the pillow. It brings me happier 
dreams than the others, and takes no more time in bringing 
them. Preparation for my lectures made me remember a 
great deal of the poem. I did not request my auditors to ad- 
mire the beauty of the metrical version, — 

" Osanna sanctus deus Sabbaoth, 
Super-illustrans charitate tua 
Felices ignes horum Malahoth ; " 

nor these, with a slip of Italian between two pales of Latin : 

" Modicum,! et non videbitis me, 
Et iterum, sorelle mie dilette. 
Modicum, et vos videbitis me." 

I dare not repeat all I recollect of — 

" Pepe Setan, Pepe Setan, aleppe," 

as there is no holy-water sprinkler in the room : and you are 
aware that other dangers awaited me, had I been so imprudent 
as to show the Florentines the allusion of our poet. His gergo 
is perpetually in play, and sometimes plays very roughly. 

Petrarca. We will talk again of him presently. I must 
now rejoice with you over the recovery and safety of your 
prodigal son, the " Decameron." 

1 It may puzzle an Englishman to read the lines beginning with Modi- 
cum, so as to give the metre. The secret is, to draw out et into a dissyl- 
lable, et-te, as the Italians do, who pronounce Latin verse, if possible, 
worse than we, adding a syllable to such as end with a consonant. 



THE PENTAMERON. 5 

Boccaccio. So, then, you would preserve at any rate my fa- 
vorite volume from the threatened conflagration. 

Petrarca. Had I lived at the time of Dante, I would have 
given him the same advice in the same circumstances. Yet 
how different is the tendency of the two productions ! Yours is 
somewhat too licentious ; and young men, in whose nature, or 
rather in whose education and habits, there is usually this fail- 
ing, will read you with more pleasure than is commendable or 
innocent. Yet the very time they occupy with you would per- 
haps be spent in the midst of those excesses or irregularities 
to which the moralist, in his utmost severity, will argue that 
your pen directs them. Now, there are many who are fond of 
standing on the brink of precipices, and who nevertheless are 
as cautious as any of falling in. And there are minds desirous 
of being warmed by description, which, without this warmth, 
might seek excitement among the things described. 

I would not tell you in health what I tell you in convales- 
cence, nor urge you to compose, what I dissuade you from can- 
celling. After this avowal, I do declare to 5'-ou, Giovanni, that 
in my opinion the very idlest of your tales will do the world 
as much good as evil, — not reckoning the pleasure of reading, 
nor the exercise and recreation of the mind, which in them- 
selves are good. What I reprove you for, is the indecorous 
and uncleanly; and these, I trust, you will abolish. Even 
these, however, may repel from vice the ingenuous and grace- 
ful spirit, and can never lead any such toward them. Never 
have you taken an inhuman pleasure in blunting and fusing the 
affections at the furnace of the passions ; never, in hardening, 
by sour sagacity and ungenial strictures, that delicacy which is 
more productive of innocence and happiness, more estranged 
from every track and tendency of their opposites, than what in 
cold crude systems hath holden the place and dignity of the 
highest virtue. May you live, O my friend, in the enjoyment 
of health, to substitute the facetious for the licentious, the sim- 
ple for the extravagant, the true and characteristic for the in- 
definite and diffuse. 

Boccaccio. I dare not defend myself under the bad exam- 
ple of any : and the bad example of a great man is the worst 
defence of all. Since however you have mentioned Messer 
Dante Alighieri, to whose genius I never thought of approach- 



6 THE PENTAMERON. 

ing, I may perhaps have been formerly the less cautious of 
offending by my levity, after seeing him display as much or 
more of it in hell itself. 

Petrarca. The best apology for Dante, in his poetical char- 
acter, is presented by the indulgence of criticism, in consider- 
ing the " Inferno " and " Purgatorio " as a string of Satires, part 
in narrative and part in action ; which renders the title of " Com- 
media " more applicable. The filthiness of some passages would 
disgrace the drunkenest horse-dealer ; and the names of such 
criminals are recorded by the poet as would be forgotten by 
the hangman in six months. I wish I could expatiate rather 
on his injudiciousness than on his ferocity, in devising punish- 
ments for various crimes ; or rather, than on his malignity in 
composing catalogues of criminals to inflict them on. Among 
the rest we find a gang of coiners. He calls by name all the 
rogues and vagabonds of every city in Tuscany, and curses 
every city for not sending him more of them. You would 
fancy that Pisa might have contented him ; no such thing. 
He hoots, — 

"Ah, Pisa ! scandal to the people in whose fine country s'l 
means yes, why are thy neighbors slack to punish thee ? May 
Capraia and Gorgona stop up the mouth of the Amo, and 
drown every soul within thee ! " 

Boccaccio. None but a prophet is privileged to swear and 
curse at this rate, and several of those got broken heads for it. 

Petrarca. It did not happen to Dante, though he once 
was very near it, in the expedition of the exiles to recover the 
city. Scarcely had he taken breath after this imprecation 
against the Pisans, than he asks the Genoese why such a parcel 
of knaves as themselves were not scattered over the face oi 
the earth. 

Boccaccio. Here he is equitable. I wonder he did not in- 
cline to one or other of these rival republics. 

Petrarca. In fact, the Genoese fare a trifle better under 
him than his neighbors the Pisans do. 

Boccaccio. Because they have no Gorgona and Capraia to 
block them up. He cannot do all he wishes, but he does all 
he can, considering the means at his disposal. In like manner 
Messer Gregorio Peruzzi, when he was tormented by the quar- 
rels and conflicts of Messer Gino Ubaldini's trufle-dog at the 



THE PENTAMERON. J 

next door, and Messer Guidone Fantecchi's shop-dog, whose 
title and quaUty are in abeyance, swore bitterly, and called the 
Virgin and Saint Catherine to witness, that he would cut off 
their tails if ever he caught them. His cook, Niccolo Buonac- 
corsi, hoping to gratify his master, set baits for them, and cap- 
tured them both in the kitchen. But unwilling to cast hands 
prematurely on the delinquents, he, after rating them for their 
animosities and their ravages, bethought himself in what man- 
ner he might best conduct his enterprise to a successful issue. 
He was the rather inclined to due deliberation in these coun- 
sels, as they, lajdng aside their private causes of contention in 
front of their common enemy, and turning the principal stream 
of their ill-blood into another channel, agreed in demonstra- 
tions which augured no little indocility. Messer Gregorio 
hath many servants, and moreover all the conveniences which 
so plenteous a house requires. Among the rest is a long 
hempen cloth suspended by a roller. Niccolo, in the most 
favorable juncture, was minded to slip this hempen cloth over 
the two culprits, whose consciences had made them slink toward 
the door against which it was fastened. The smell of it was not 
unsatisfactory to them, and an influx of courage had nearly borne 
away the worst suspicions. At this instant, while shrewd in- 
quisitiveness and incipient hunger were regaining the ascend- 
ency, Niccolo Buonaccorsi, with all the sagacity and courage, 
all the promptitude and timeliness of his profession, covered 
both conspirators in the inextricable folds of the fatal winding- 
sheet, from which their heads alone emerged. Struggles and 
barkings and exhibitions of teeth and plunges forward were 
equally ineffectual. He continued to twist it about them, un- 
til the notes of resentment partook of remonstrance and pain : 
but he told them plainly he would never remit a jot, unless 
they became more domesticated and reasonable. In this state 
of exhaustion and contrition he brought them into the presence 
of Ser Gregorio, who immediately turned round toward the 
wall, crossed himself, and whispered an ave. At ease and 
happy as he was at the accomplishment of a desire so long 
cherished, no sooner had he expressed his piety at so gracious 
a dispensation, than, reverting to the captor and the captured, 
he was seized with unspeakable consternation. He discovered 
at once that he had made as rash a vow as Jephtha's. Alas ! 
one of the children of captivity, the trufle-dog, had no tail ! 



is THE PENTAMERON. 

Fortunately for Messer Gregorio, he found a friend among the 
White Friars, Frate Geppone Pallorco, who told him that when 
v/e cannot do a thing promised by vow, whether we fail by 
moral inability or by physical, we must do the thing nearest it ; 
"which," said Fra Geppone, "hath always been my practice. 
And now," added this cool considerate white friar, "a dog 
may have no tail, and yet be a dog to all intents and purposes, 
and enable a good Christian to perform anything reasonable he 
promised in his behalf. Whereupon I would advise you, Mes- 
ser Gregorio, out of the loving zeal I bear toward the whole 
family of the Peruzzi, to amerce him of that which, if not tail, 
is next to tail. Such function, I doubt not, will satisfactorily 
show the blessed Virgin, and Saint Catherine, your readiness 
and solicitude to perform the vow solemnly made before those 
two adorable ladies, your protectresses and witnesses." Ser 
Gregorio bent his knee at first hearing their names, again at 
the mention of them in this relationship toward him, called for 
the kitchen knife, and, in absolving his promise, had lighter 
things to deal with than Gorgona and Capraia. 

Petrarca. Giovanni ! this will do instead of one among the 
worst of the hundred : but with little expenditure of labor you 
may afford us a better. 

Our great fellow- citizen — if indeed we may denominate him 
a citizen who would have left no city standing in Italy, and less 
willingly his native one — places in the mouth of the Devil, to- 
gether with Judas Iscariot, the defenders of their country, and 
the best men in it, Brutus and Cassius. Certainly his feeling 
of patriotism was different from theirs. 

I should be sorry to imagine that it subjected him to any 
harder mouth or worse company than his own, although in a 
spirit so contrary to that of the two Romans he threatened us 
Florentines with the sword of Germans. The two Romans, 
now in the mouth of the Devil, chose rather to lose their lives 
than to see their country, not under the government of invad- 
ers, but of magistrates from their own city placed irregularly 
over them, and the laws, not subverted, but administered un- 
constitutionally. That Frenchmen and Austrians should argue 
and think in this manner is no wonder, no inconsistency : that 
a Florentine, the wisest and greatest of Florentines, should have 
done it, is portentous. 

How merciful is the Almighty, O Giovanni ! What an argu- 



THE PENTAMERON. 9 

ment is here ! how much stronger and more convincing than 
philosophers could devise or than poets could utter unless 
from inspiration, against the placing of power in the hands of 
one man only, when the highest genius at that time in the 
world, or perhaps at any time, betrays a disposition to employ 
it with such a licentiousness of inhumanity. 

Boccaccio. He treats Nero with greater civility : yet Bru- 
tus and Cassius, at worst, but slew an atheist, while the other 
rogue flamed forth like the pestilential dogstar, and burnt up 
the first crop of Christians to light the ruins of Rome. And 
the artist of these ruins thought no more of his operation than 
a scene-painter would have done at the theatre. 

Petrarca. Historians have related that Rome was consumed 
by Nero for the purpose of suppressing the rising sect, by lay- 
ing all the blame on it. Do you think he cared what sect fell 
or what sect rose ? Was he a zealot in religion of any kind ? 
I am sorry to see a lying spirit the most prevalent one, in some 
among the earliest and firmest holders of that religion which 
is founded on truth and singleness of intention. There are 
pious men who believe they are rendering a service to God by 
bearing false witness in his favor, and who call on the Father of 
Lies to hold up his light before the Sun of righteousness. 

We may mistake the exact day when the conflagration be- 
gan : certain it is, however, that it was in summer ; ■'• and it is 
presumable that the commencement of the persecution was 
in winter, since Juvenal represents the persecuted as serving 
for lamps in the streets. Now, as the Romans did not fre- 
quent the theatres nor other places of public entertainment 
by night, such conveniences were uncalled for in summer, a 
season when the people retired to rest betimes, from the same 
motive as at present, — the insalubrity of the evening air in the 
hot weather. Nero must have been very forbearing if he 
waited those many months before he punished a gang of in- 
cendiaries. Such clemency is unexampled in milder princes. 

Boccaccio. But the Christians were not incendiaries, and 
he knew they were not. 

Fetrarca. It may be apprehended that among the many vir- 
tuous of the new believers a few seditious were also to be 

1 Des Vignolles has calculated that the conflagration began on the 19th 
of July, in the year 64, and the persecution on the 15th of November. 



lO THE PENTAMERON. 

found, forming separate and secret associations, choosing gen- 
erals or superiors to whom they swore impKcit obedience, and 
under whose guidance or impulse they were ready to resist, 
and occasionally to attack, the magistrates, and even the 
prince, — men aspiring to rule the state by carrying the sword 
of assassination under the garb of holiness. Such persons are 
equally odious to the unenlightened and the enlightened, to 
the arbitrary and the free. In the regular course of justice, 
their crimes would have been resisted by almost as much se- 
verity as they appear to have undergone from despotic power 
and popular indignation. 

Boccaccio. We will talk no longer about these people. But 
since the Devil has really and bond fide Brutus and Cassius in 
his mouth, I would advise him to make the most of them, for 
he will never find two more such morsels on the same platter. 
Kings, emperors, and popes would be happy to partake with 
him of so dehcate and choice a repast ; but I hope he has 
fitter fare for them. 

Messer Dante Alighieri does not indeed make the most 
gentle use of the company he has about him in hell and 
purgatory. Since however he hath such a selection of them, 
I wish he could have been contented, and could have left 
our fair Florentines to their own fancies in 'their dressing- 
rooms. 

"The time," he cries, "is not far distant, when there will 
be an indictment on parchment, forbidding the impudent 
young Florentines to show their breasts and nipples." 

Now, Francesco, I have been subject all my life to a strange 
distemper in the eyes, which no oculist can cure, and which, 
while it allows me to peruse the smallest character in the very 
worst female hand, would never let me read an indictment on 
parchment where female names are implicated, although the 
letters were a finger in length. I do believe the same distem- 
per was very prevalent in the time of Messer Dante ; and 
those Florentine maids and matrons who were not afflicted by 
it, were too modest to look at letters and signatures stuck 
against the walls. 

He goes on, " Was there ever girl among the Moors or Sara- 
cens, on whom it was requisite to inflict spiritual or other dis- 
cipline to make her go covered? " 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 1 - 

Some of the other discipline, which the spiritual guides were 
and are still in the habit of administering, have exactly the 
contrary effect to make them go covered, whatsoever may be 
urged by the confessor. 

" If the shameless creatures," he continues, "were aware of 
the speedy chastisement which Heaven is preparing for them, 
they would at this instant have their mouths wide open to roar 
withal." 

Petrarca. This is not very exquisite satire, nor much better 
manners. 

Boccaccio. Whenever I saw a pretty Florentine in such a 
condition, I lowered my eyes. 

Petrarca. I am glad to hear it. 

Boccaccio. Those whom I could venture to cover, I cov- 
ered with all my heart. 

Petrarca. Humanely done. You might likewise have ad- 
ded some gentle admonition. 

Boccaccio. They would have taken anything at my hands 
rather than that. Truly, they thought themselves as wise as 
they thought me : and who knows but they were, at bottom ? 

Petrarca. I beheve it may, in general, be best to leave 
them as we find them. 

Boccaccio. I would not say that, neither. Much may be in 
vain, but something sticks. 

Petrarca. They are more amused than settled by anything 
we can advance against them, and are apt to make light of the 
gravest. It is only the hour of reflection that is at last the 
hour of sedateness and improvement. 

Boccaccio. Where is the bell that strikes it ? 

Petrarca. Fie ! fie ! Giovanni ! This is worse than the in- 
dictment on parchment. 

Boccaccio. Women like us none the less for joking with 
them about their foibles. In fact, they take it ill when v/e 
cease to do so, unless it is age that compels us. We may give 
our courser the rein to any extent, while he runs in the com- 
mon field and does not paw against privacy, nor open his nos- 
trils on individuality : I mean the individuality of the person 
we converse with, for another's is pure zest. 

Petrarca. Surely, you can not draw this hideous picture 
from your own observation : has any graver man noted it ? 



12 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. Who would believe your graver men upon such 
matters? Gout and gravel, bile and sciatica, are the uphol- 
sterers that stuff their moral sentences. Crooked and cramp 
are truths written with chalk-stones. When people like me 
talk as I have been talking, they may be credited. We have 
no ill-will, no ill-humor, to gratify : and vanity has no trial here 
at issue. He was certainly born on an unlucky day for his 
friends, who never uttered any truths but unquestionable ones. 
Give me food that exercises my teeth and tongue, and ideas 
that exercise my imagination and discernment. 

Petrarca. When you are at leisure, and in perfect health, 
weed out carefully the few places of your "Decameron " which 
are deficient in these qualities. 

Boccaccio. God willing ; I wish I had undertaken it when 
my heart was lighter. Is there anything else you can suggest 
for its improvement, in particular or in general ? 

Petrarca. Already we have mentioned the inconsiderate 
and indecorous. In what you may substitute hereafter, I would 
say to you, as I have said to myself, do not be on all occasions 
too ceremonious in the structure of your sentences. 

Boccaccio. You would surely wish me to be round and po- 
lished. Why do you smile ? 

Petrarca. I am afraid these qualities are often of as httle 
advantage in composition as they are corporeally. When ac- 
tion and strength are chiefly the requisites, we may perhaps be 
better with little of them. The modulations of voice and lan- 
guage are 'infinite. Cicero has practised many of them ; but 
Cicero has his favorite swells, his favorite flourishes and caden- 
ces. Our Italian language is in the enjoyment of an ampler 
scope and compass ; and we are liberated from the horrible 
sounds of tis, am, um, ant, int, unt, so predominant in the 
finals of Latin nouns and verbs. We may be told that they 
give strength to the dialect : we might as well be told that 
bristles give strength to the boar. In our Italian we possess 
the privilege of striking off the final vowel from the greater 
part of masculine nouns, and from the greater part of tenses 
in the verbs, when we believe they impede our activity and 
vigor. 

Boccaccio. We are as wealthy in words as is good for us ; 
and she who gave us these would give us more if needful. In 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 3 

another age it is probable that curtailments will rather be made 
than additions ; for it was so with the Latin and Greek. Bar- 
baric luxury sinks down into civic neatness, and chaster orna- 
ments fill rooms of smaller dimensions. 

Petrarca. Cicero came into possession of the stores col- 
lected by Plautus, which he always held very justly in the high- 
est estimation ; and Sallust is reported to have misapplied a 
part of them. At his death they were scattered and lost. 

Boccaccio. I am wiser than I was when I studied the noble 
orator, and wiser by his means chiefly. In return for his ben- 
efits, if we could speak on equal terms together, — the novelist 
with the philosopher, the citizen of Certaldo with the Roman 
consul, — I would fain whisper in his ear, " Escape from rhet- 
oric by all manner of means : and if you must cleave (as 
indeed you must) to that old shrew Logic, be no fonder of 
exhibiting her than you would be of a plain economical wife. 
Let her be always busy, never intrusive, and readier to keep the 
chambers clean and orderly than to expatiate on their propor- 
tions or to display their furniture." 

Petrarca. The citizen of Certaldo is fifty-fold more richly 
endowed with genius than the Roman consul, and might 
properly — 

Boccaccio. Stay ! stay ! Francesco ! or they will shave all the 
rest of thy crown for thee, and physic thee worse than me. 

Petrarca. MiddUng men, favored in their lifetime by cir- 
cumstances, often appear of higher stature than belongs to 
them; great men always of lower. Time, the sovereign, in- 
vests with befitting raiment and distinguishes with proper en- 
signs the familiars he has received into his eternal habitations : 
in these alone are they deposited, — you must wait for them. 

No advice is less necessary to you than the advice to express 
your meaning as clearly as you can. Where the purpose of 
glass is to be seen through, we do not want it tinted or wavy. 
In certain kinds of poetry the case may be slightly different, — 
such, for instance, as are intended to display the powers of 
association and combination in the writer, and to invite and 
exercise the compass and comprehension of the intelligent. 
Pindar and the Attic tragedians wrote in this manner, and 
rendered the minds of their audience more alert and ready and 
capacious. They found some fit for them, and made others. 



14 THE PENTAMERON. 

Great painters have always the same task to perform. What 
is excellent in their art cannot be thought excellent by many, 
even of those who reason well on ordinary matters, and see 
clearly beauties elsewhere. All correct perceptions are the 
effect of careful practice. We little doubt that a mirror would 
direct us in the most familiar of our features, and that our 
hand would follow its guidance, until we try to cut a lock of 
our hair. We have no such criterion to demonstrate our lia- 
bility to error in judging of poetry, — a quality so rare that 
perhaps no five contemporaries ever were masters of it. 

Boccaccio. We admire by tradition j we censure by caprice ; 
and there is nothing in which we are more ingenious and in- 
ventive. A wrong step in politics sprains a foot in poetry ; 
eloquence is never so unwelcome as when it issues from a 
familiar voice ; and praise hath no echo but from a certain 
distance. Our critics, who know little about them, would 
gaze with wonder at anything similar in our days to Pindar 
and Sophocles, and would cast it aside, as quite impracticable. 
They are in the right, for sonnet and canzonet charm greater 
numbers. There are others, or may be hereafter, to whom far 
other things will afford far higher gratification. 

Petrarca. But our business at present is with prose and 
Cicero j and our question now is, what is Ciceronian. He 
changed his style according to his matter and his hearers. 
His speeches to the people vary from his speeches to the 
senate. Toward the one he was impetuous and exacting ; toward 
the other he was usually but earnest and anxious, and some- 
times but submissive and imploring, yet equally unwiUing on 
both occasions to conceal the labor he had taken to captivate 
their attention and obtain success. At the tribunal of Caesar 
the Dictator he laid aside his costly armor, contracted the 
folds of his capacious robe, and became calm, insinuating, and 
adulative, showing his spirit not utterly extinguished, his dignity 
not utterly fallen, his consular year not utterly abolished from 
his memory, but Rome, and even himself, lowered in the 
presence of his judge. 

Boccaccio. And after all this, can you bear to think what 
I am? 

Petrarca. Complacently and joyfully; venturing, neverthe- 
less, to offer you a friend's advice. 



THE PENTAMERON. 15 

Enter into the mind and heart of your own creatures ; think 
of them long, entirely, solely, — never of style, never of self, 
never of critics, cracked or sound. Like the miles of an open 
country, and of an ignorant population, when they are cor- 
rectly measured they become smaller. In the loftiest rooms 
and richest entablatures are suspended the most spider-webs ; 
and the quarry out of which palaces are erected is the nursery 
of nettle and bramble, 

Boccaccio. It is better to keep always in view such writers 
as Cicero, than to run after those idlers who throw stones that 
can never reach us. 

Petrarca. If you copied him to perfection, and on no occa- 
sion lost sight of him, you would be an indifferent, not to say a 
bad writer. 

Boccaccio. I begin to think you are in the right. Well, then, 
retrenching some of my licentious tales, I must endeavor to 
fill up the vacancy with some serious and some pathetic. 

Petrarca. I am heartily glad to hear of this decision ; for, 
admirable as you are in the jocose, you descend from your 
natural position when you come to the convivial and the festive. 
You were placed among the Affections, to move and master 
them, and gifted with the rod that sweetens the fount of tears. 
My nature leads me also to the pathetic ; in which, however, an 
imbecile writer may obtain celebrity. Even the hard-hearted 
are fond of such reading when they are fond of any, and 
nothing is easier in the world than to find and accumulate its 
sufferings. Yet this very profusion and luxuriance of misery is 
the reason why few have excelled in describing it. The eye 
wanders over the mass without noticing the peculiarities ; to 
mark them distinctly is the work of genius, — a work so rarely 
performed, that, if time and space may be compared, speci- 
mens of it stand at wider distances than the trophies of Sesos- 
tris. Here we return again to the " Inferno " of Dante, who 
overcame the difficulty. In this vast desert are its greater and 
its less oasis, — Ugolino and Francesca di Rimini. The peopled 
region is peopled chiefly with monsters and mosquitoes : the 
rest for the most part is sand and suffocation. 

Boccaccio. Ah ! had Dante remained through life the pure 
solitary lover of Bice, his soul had been gentler, tranquiller, 
and more generous. He scarcely hath described half the 



1 6 THE PENTAMERON. 

curses he went through, nor the roads he took on the journey, — 
theology, poHtics, and that barbican of the " Inferno " marriage, 
surrounded with its 

" Selva selvaggia ed aspra e forte." 

Admirable is indeed the description of Ugolino, to whoever 
can endure the sight of an old soldier gnawing at the scalp of an 
old archbishop. 

Petrarca. The thirty lines from 

" Ed io sentj " 

are unequalled by any other continuous thirty in the whole 
dominions of poetry. 

Boccaccio. Give me rather the six on Francesca : for if in 
the former I find the simple, vigorous, clear narration, I find 
also what I would not wish, — the features of Ugolino reflected 
full in Dante. The two characters are similar in them- 
selves, — hard, cruel, inflexible, mahgnant, but whenever moved, 
moved powerfully. In Francesca, with the faculty of divine 
spirits, he leaves his own nature (not indeed the exact repre- 
sentative of theirs) and converts all his strength into tender- 
ness. The great poet, like the original man of the Platonists, 
is double, possessing the further advantage of being able to 
drop one half at his option, and to resume it. Some of the 
tenderest on paper have no sympathies beyond ; and some of 
the austerest in their intercourse with their fellow-creatures 
have deluged the world with tears. It is not from the rose 
that the bee gathers her honey, but often from the most acrid 
and the most bitter leaves and petals. 

" Quando legemmo il disiato viso 

Esser baciato di cotanto amante, 
Questi, chi mai da me non sia diviso ! 

La bocca mi bacio tutto tremante — 
Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse — 

Quel giorno piii non vi legemmo avante." 

In the midst of her punishment, Francesca, when she comes to 
the tenderest part of her story, tells it with complacency and 
delight ; and instead of naming Paolo, which indeed she never 
has done from the beginning, she now designates him as 

^" Questi chi mai da me non sia diviso I " 



THE PENTAMERON. 1/ 

Are we not impelled to join in her prayer, wishing them hap- 
pier in their union? 

Petrarca. If there be no sin in it. 

Boccaccio. Ay, and even if there be — God help us ! 

What a sweet aspiration in each caesura of the verse ! — three 
love-sighs fixed and incorporate ! Then, when she hath said 

" La bocca mi bacio, tutto tremante," 

she stops: she would avert the eyes of Dante from her. He 
looks for the sequel : she thinks he looks severely. She says, 
"Galeotio is the name of the book," fancying by this timorous 
Httle flight she has drawn him far enough from the nest of her 
young loves. No, the eagle beak of Dante and his piercing 
eyes are yet over her. 

"Galeotfo is the name of the book." 

"What matters that?" 

"And of the vmter." 

"Or that either?" 

At last she disarms him : but how? 

" That day we read no more." 

Such a depth of intuitive judgment, such a delicacy of per- 
ception, exists not in any other work of human genius, — and 
from an author who on almost all occasions, in this part of the 
work, betrays a deplorable want of it. 

Petrarca. Perfection of poetry ! The greater is my won- 
der at discovering nothing else of the same order or cast in 
this whole section of the poem. He who fainted at the recital 
of Francesca, — 

" And he who fell as a dead body falls," — 

would exterminate all the inhabitants of every town in Italy ! 
What execrations against Florence, Pistoia, Siena, Pisa, Genoa ! 
What hatred against the whole human race ! What exultation 
and merriment at eternal and immitigable sufferings ! Seeing 
this, I cannot but consider the " Inferno " as the most immoral 
and impious book that ever was written. Yet, hopeless that 
our country shall ever see again such poetry, and certain that 
without it our future poets would be more feebly urged forward 
to excellence, I would have dissuaded Dante from cancelhng 
it, if this had been his intention. Much however as I admire 



15 THE PENTAMERON. 

his vigor and severity of ^tyle in the description of UgoHno, I 
acknowledge with you that I do not discover so much imagina- 
tion, so much creative power, as in the Francesca, I find in- 
deed a minute detail of probable events ; but this is not all I 
want in a poet, — it is not even all I want most in a scene of 
horror. Tribunals of justice, dens of murderers, wards of hos- 
pitals, schools of anatomy, will afford us nearly the same sen- 
sations if we hear them from an accurate observer, a clear 
reporter, a skilful surgeon, or an attentive nurse. There is 
nothing of sublimity in the horrific of Dante, which there al- 
ways is in ^schylus and Homer. If you, Giovanni, had 
described so nakedly the reception of Guiscardo's heart by 
Gismonda, or Lorenzo's head by Lisabetta, we could hardly 
have endured it. 

Boccaccio. Prythee, dear Francesco, do not place me over 
Dante ; I stagger at the idea of approaching him. 

Petrarca. Never think I am placing you blindly or indis- 
criminately. I have faults to find with you, and even here. 
Lisabetta should by no means have been represented cutting 
off the head of her lover, " as well as she could ^' with a clasp- 
knife. This is shocking and improbable. She might have 
found it already cut off by her brothers, in order to bury the 
corpse more commodiously and expeditiously.- Nor indeed is 
it likely that she should have intrusted it to her waiting-maid, 
who carried home in her bosom a treasure so dear to her, and 
found so unexpectedly and so lately. 

Boccaccio. That is true : I will correct the oversight. Why 
do we never hear of our faults until everybody knows them, 
and until they stand in record against us? 

Petrarca. Because our ears are closed to truth and friend- 
ship for some time after the triumphal course of composition. 
We are too sensitive for the gentlest touch ; and when we 
really have the most infirmity, we are angry to be told that we 
have any. 

Boccaccio. Ah, Francesco ! thou art poet from scalp to 
heel ; but what other would open his breast as thou hast done ! 
They show ostentatiously far worse weaknesses ; but the most 
honest of the tribe would forswear himself on this. Again, I 
acknowledge it, you have reason to complain of Lisabetta and 
Gismonda. 



THE PENTAMERON. I 9 

Petrarca. They keep the soul from sinking in such dread- 
ful circumstances by the buoyancy of imagination. The sun- 
shine of poetry makes the color of blood less horrible, and 
draws up a shadowy and a softening haziness where the scene 
would otherwise be too distinct. Poems, like rivers, convey 
to their destination what must without their appliances be left 
unhandled : these to ports and arsenals, this to the human 
heart. 

Boccaccio. So it is ; and what is terror in poetry is horror 
in prose. We may be brought too close to an object to leave 
any room for pleasure, Ugolino affects us hke a skeleton, by 
dry bony verity. 

Petrarca. We cannot be too distinct in our images ; but 
although distinctness on this and most other occasions is de- 
sirable in the imitative arts, yet sometimes in painting, and 
sometimes in poetry, an object should not be quite precise. In 
your novel of Andrevola and Gabriotto, you afford me an 
illustration. 

" Le pareva dal corpo di lui uscire una 
cosa oscura e terribile." 

This is hke a dream : this is a dream. Afterward, you present 
to us such palpable forms and pleasing colors as may relieve 
and soothe us. 

" Ed avendo molte rose, bianche e vermi- 
glie, colte, perciocche la stagione era." 

Boccaccio. Surely you now are mocking me. The roses, 
I perceive, would not have been there had it not been the 
season, 

Petrarca. A poet often does more and better than he is 
aware at the time, and seems at last to know as little about it 
as a silkworm knows about the fineness of her thread. 

The uncertain dream that still hangs over us in the novel is 
intercepted and hindered from hurting us by the spell of the 
roses, of the white and the red ; a word the less would have 
rendered it incomplete. The very warmth and geniality of the 
season shed their kindly influence on us, and we are renovated 
and ourselves again by virtue of the clear fountain where we 
rest. Nothing of this poetical providence comes to our relief 
in Dante, though we want it oftener. It would be difficult to 



20 THE PENTAMERON. 

form an idea of a poem, into which so many personages are 
introduced, containing so few deUneations of character, so few 
touches that excite our sympathy, so few elementary signs for 
our instruction, so few topics for our dehght, so few excursions 
for our recreation. Nevertheless, his powers of language are 
prodigious ; and in the solitary places where he exerts his 
force rightly, the stroke is irresistible. But how greatly to be 
pitied must he be, who can find nothing in paradise better than 
sterile theology ! and what an object of sadness and of conster- 
nation he who rises up from hell like a giant refreshed ! 

Boccaccio. Strange perversion ! A pillar of smoke by day 
and of fire by night, — to guide no one. Paradise had fewer 
wants for him to satisfy than hell had ; all which he fed to re- 
pletion. But let us rather look to his poetry than his temper. 

Petrarca. We will, then. 

A good poem is not divided into little panes like a cathedral 
window ; which httle panes themselves are broken and blurred, 
with a saint's coat on a dragon's tail, a doctor's head on the 
bosom of a virgin martyr, and having about them more lead 
than glass, and more gloom than coloring. A good satire or 
good comedy, if it does not always smile, rarely and briefly 
intermits it, and never rages. A good epic shows us more and 
more distinctly, at every book of it we open, 'the feature and 
properties of heroic character, and terminates with accom- 
plishing some momentous action. A good tragedy shows us 
that greater men than ourselves have suffered more severely 
and more unjustly ; that the highest human power hath sud- 
denly fallen helpless and extinct ; or, what is better to con- 
template and usefuUer to know, that uncontrolled by law, 
unaccompanied by virtue, unfoUowed by contentment, its pos- 
session is undesirable and unsafe. Sometimes we go away in 
triumph with Affliction proved and purified, and leave her 
under the smiles of heaven. In all these consummations the 
object is excellent ; and here is the highest point to which 
poetry can attain. Tragedy has no by-paths, no resting-places ; 
there is everywhere action and passion. What do we find of 
this nature, or what of the epic, in the Orpheus and Judith, 
the Charon and Can della Scala, the Sinon and Maestro 
Adamo ? 

Boccaccio. Personages strangely confounded ! In this cate- 



THE PENTAMERON. 21 

gory it required a strong hand to make Pluto and Pepe Satan 
keep the peace, both having the same pretensions, and neither 
the sweetest temper. 

Petrarca. Then the description of Mahomet is indecent 
and filthy. Yet Dante is scarcely more disgusting in this place, 
than he is insipid and spiritless in his allegory of the mar- 
riages between Saint Francesco and Poverty, Saint Dominico 
and Faith. I speak freely and plainly to you, Giovanni, and 
the rather, as you have informed me that I have been thought 
invidious to the reputation of our great poet, — for such he is 
transcendently, in the midst of his imperfections. Such like- 
wise were Ennius and Lucilius in the same period of Roman 
literature. They were equalled, and perhaps excelled : will 
Dante ever be, in his native tongue ? The past generations of 
his countrymen, the glories of old Rome, fade before him the 
instant he springs upward ; but they impart a more constant 
and a more genial delight. 

Boccaccio. They have less hair-cloth about them, and smell 
less cloisterly ; yet they are only choristers. 

The generous man, such as you, praises and censures with 
equal freedom, not with equal pleasure : the freedom and the 
pleasure of the ungenerous are both contracted, and lie only 
on the left hand. 

Petrarca. When we point out to our friends an object in 
the country, do we wish to diminish it? Do we wish to show 
it overcast? Why then should we in those nobler works of 
creation, God's only representatives, who have cleared our in- 
tellectual sight for us, and have displayed before us things 
more magnificent than Nature would without them have 
revealed ? 

We poets are heated by proximity. Those who are gone, 
warm us by the breath they leave behind them in their course, 
and only warm us : those who are standing near, and just be- 
fore, fever us. Solitude has kept me uninfected, — unless you 
may hint perhaps that pride was my preservative against the 
malignity of a worse disease. 

Boccaccio. It might well be, though it were not ; you hav- 
ing been crowned in the capital of the Christian world, 

Petrarca. That indeed would have been something, if I 
had been crowned for my Christianity, of which I suspect there 



22 THE PENTAMERON. 

are better judges in Rome than there are of poetry. I would 
rather be preferred to my rivals by the two best critics of the age 
than by all the others, who if they think differently from the 
two wisest in these matters must necessarily think wrong. 

Boccaccio. You know that not only the first two, but many 
more, prefer you ; and that neither they, nor any who are ac- 
quainted with your character, can believe that your strictures 
on Dante are invidious or uncandid. 

Petrarca. I am borne toward him by many strong impulses. 
Our families were banished by the same faction : he himself 
and my father left Florence on the same day, and both left it 
forever. This recollection would rather make me cling to 
him than cast him down. Ill fortune has many and tenacious 
ties : good fortune has few and fragile ones. I saw our illus- 
trious fellow-citizen once only, and when I was a child. Even 
the sight of such a poet, in early days, is dear to him who 
aspires to become one, and the memory is always in his favor. 
The worst I can recollect to have said against his poem to 
others is, that the architectural fabric of the " Inferno " is unin- 
telligible without a long study, and only to be understood after 
distracting our attention from its inhabitants. Its locahty and 
dimensions are at last uninteresting, and would better have 
been left in their obscurity. The zealots of Dlnte compare it, 
for invention, with the infernal regions of Homer and Virgil. 
I am ignorant how much the Grecian poet invented, how much 
existed in the religion, how much in the songs and traditions 
of the people. But surely our Alighieri has taken the same 
idea, and even made his descent in the same part of Italy, as 
^neas had done before. In the Odyssea the mind is perpet- 
ually relieved by variety of scene and character. There are 
vices enough in it, but rising from lofty or from powerful pas- 
sions, and under the veil of mystery and poetry : there are 
virtues too enough, and human and definite and practicable. 
We have man, although a shade, in his own features, in his 
own dimensions : he appears before us neither cramped by 
systems nor jaundiced by schools, — no savage, no cit, no canni- 
bal, no doctor. Vigorous and elastic, he is such as poetry saw 
him first ; he is such as poetry would ever see him. In Dante, 
the greater part of those who are not degraded, are debilitated 
and distorted. No heart swells here, either for overpowered 



THE PENTAMERON. 23 

valor or for unrequited love. In the shades alone, but in the 
shades of Homer, does Ajax rise to his full loftiness ; in the 
shades alone, but in the shades of Virgil, is Dido the arbitress 
of our tears. "j 

Boccaccio. I must confess there are nowhere two whole 
cantos in Dante which will bear a sustained and close com- 
parison with the very worst book of the Odyssea or the 
^neid ; that there is nothing of the same continued and un- 
abated excellence as Ovid's in the contention for the armor of 
Achilles, — the most heroic of heroic poetry, and only censur- 
able, if censurable at all, because the eloquence of the braver 
man is more animated and more persuasive than his successful 
rival's. I do not think Ovid the best poet that ever lived, but 
I think he wrote the most of good poetry, and, in proportion 
to its quantity, the least of bad or indifferent. The " Inferno," 
the " Purgatorio," the " Paradiso " are pictures from the walls of 
our churches and chapels and monasteries, some painted by 
Giotto and Cimabue, some earlier. In several of these we detect 
not only the cruelty, but likewise the satire and indecency of 
Dante. Sometimes there is also his vigor and simplicity, but 
oftener his harshness and meagreness and disproportion. I am 
afraid the good Alighieri, like his friends the painters, was in- 
clined to think the angels were created only to flagellate and 
burn us, and paradise only for us to be driven out of it. And 
in truth, as we have seen it exhibited, there is but little hard- 
ship in the case. 

The opening of the third canto of the " Inferno " has always 
been much admired. There is indeed a great solemnity in 
the words of the inscription on the portal of hell ; nevertheless, 
I do not see the necessity for three verses out of six. After 

" Per me si va nell' eterno dolore," 

it surely is superfluous to subjoin 

" Per me si va fra la perduta gente ; " 

for, besides the " perduta gente," who else can suffer the eternal 
woe ? And when the portal has told us that " Justice moved 
the high Maker to make it," surely it might have omitted the 
notification that his " divine power " did it, — 

" Fecemi la divina potestate." 



24 - THE PENTAMERON. 

The next piece of information I wish had been conveyed even 
in darker characters, so that they never could have been 
deciphered. The following line is, 

"La somma Sapienza e '1 primo Amore." 

If God's first love was hell-making, we might almost wish his 
affections were as mutable as ours are, — that is, if holy church 
would countenance us therein. 

Petrarca. Systems of poetry, of philosophy, of government 
form and model us to their own proportions. As our sys- 
tems want the grandeur, the light, and the symmetry of the 
ancient, we cannot hope for poets, philosophers, or statesmen 
of equal dignity. Very justly do you remark that our churches 
and chapels and monasteries, and even our shrines and taber- 
nacles on the road-side, contain in painting the same punish- 
ments as Alighieri hath registered in his poem, — and several 
of these were painted before his birth. Nor surely can you 
have forgotten that his master, Brunetto Latini, composed one 
on the same plan. 

The Virtues and Vices, and persons under their influence, 
appear to him likewise in a wood, wherein he, like Dante, is 
bewildered. Old walls are the tablets both copy : the arrange- 
ment is the devise of Brunetto. Our religion is too simple in 
its verities and too penurious in its decorations, for poetry of 
high value. We cannot hope or desire that a pious Itahan 
will ever have the audacity to restore to Satan a portion of his 
majesty, or to remind the faithful that he is a fallen angel. 

Boccaccio. No, no, Francesco ; let us keep as much of him 
down as we can, and as long. 

Petrarca. It might not be amiss to remember that even 
human power is complacent in security, and that Omnipotence 
is ever omnipotent, without threats and fulminations. 

Boccaccio. These, however, are the main springs of sacred 
poetry, of which I think we already have enough. 

Petrarca. But good enough? 

Boccaccio. Even much better would produce less effect 
than that which has occupied our ears from childhood, and 
comes sounding and swelling with a mysterious voice from the 
deep and dark recesses of antiquity. 

Petrarca. I see no reason why we should not revert at 



THE PENTAMERON. 2$ 

times to the first intentions of poetry. Hymns to the Creator 
were its earUest efforts. 

Boccaccio. I do not beheve a word of it, unless He himself 
was graciously pleased to inspire the singer, — of which we have 
received no account. I rather think it originated in pleasura- 
ble song, perhaps of drunkenness, and resembled the dithy- 
rambic. Strong excitement alone could force and hurry men 
among words displaced and exaggerated ideas. 

Beheving that man fell, first into disobedience, next into 
ferocity and fratricide, we may reasonably believe that war- 
songs were among the earliest of his intellectual exertions. 
When he rested from battle he had leisure to think of love ; 
and the skies and the fountains and the flowers reminded him 
of her, the coy and beautiful, who fled to a mother from the 
ardor of his pursuit. In after years he lost a son, his com- 
panion in the croft and in the forest : images too grew up 
there, and rested on the grave. A daughter who had won- 
dered at his strength and wisdom, looked to him in vain for 
succor at the approach of death. Inarticulate grief gave way 
to passionate and wailing words, and Elegy was awakened. 
We have tears in this world before we have smiles, Francesco ; 
we have struggles before we have composure ; we have strife 
and complaints before we have submission and gratitude. I 
am suspicious that if we could collect the " winged words " of 
the earliest hymns, we should find that they called upon the 
Deity for vengeance. Priests and rulers were far from insen- 
sible to private wrongs. Chryses in the lUad is willing that his 
king and country should be enslaved, so that his daughter be 
sent back to him. David in the Psalms is no unimportunate 
or lukewarm applicant for the discomfiture and extermination 
of his adversaries, and among the visions of feUcity none 
brighter is promised a fortunate warrior than to dash the in- 
fants of his enemy against the stones. The Holy Scriptures 
teach us that the human race was created on the banks of the 
Euphrates, and where the river hath several branches. Here 
the climate is extremely hot ; and men, like birds, in hot cK- 
mates never sing well. I doubt whether there was ever a good 
poet in the whole city and whole plain of Babylon. Egypt 
had none but such as she imported. Mountainous countries 
bear them as they bear the more fragrant plants and savory 



26 THE PENTAMERON. 

game. Judaea had hers ; Attica reared them among her thyme 
and hives ; and Tuscany may hft her laurels not a span below. 
Never have the accents of poetry been heard on the fertile 
banks of the Vistula ; and Ovid taught the borderers of the 
Danube an indigenous ^ song in vain. 

Petrarca. Orpheus, we hear, sang on the banks of the 
Hebrus. 

Boccaccio. The banks of the Hebrus may be level or 
rocky for what I know about them ; but the river is represented 
by the poets as rapid and abounding in whirlpools, — hence, I 
presume, it runs among rocks and inequalities. Be this as it 
may, do you imagine that Thrace in those early days produced 
a philosophical poet ? 

Petrarca. We have the authority of history for it. 

Boccaccio. Bad authority too, unless we sift and cross-ex- 
amine it. Undoubtedly there were narrow paths of commerce 
in very ancient times from the Euxine to the Caspian, and 
from the Caspian to the kingdoms of the remoter East. Mer- 
chants in those days were not only the most adventurous, but 
the most intelligent men : and there were ardent minds, unin- 
fluenced by a spirit of lucre, which were impelled by the 
ardor of imagination into untravelled regions. Scythia was 
a land of fable, not only to the Greeks, but equally to the 
Romans. Thrace was a land of fable, we may well believe, 
to the nearest towns of northern India. I imagine that 
Orpheus, whoever he was, brought his knowledge from that 
quarter. We are too apt to fancy that Greece owed every- 
thing to the Phoenicians and Egyptians. The elasticity of her 
mind threw off, or the warmth of her imagination transmuted, 
the greater part of her earlier acquisitions. She was indebted 
to Phoenicia for nothing but her alphabet ; and even these 
signs she modified, and endowed them with a portion of her 
flexibility and grace. 

Petrarca. There are those who tell us that Homer lived 
before the age of letters in Greece. 

Boccaccio. I wish they knew the use of them as well as he 
did. Will they not also tell us that the commerce of the two 
nations was carried on without the numerals (and such were 

1 ' Aptaque sunt nostris barbara verba modis.' 
What are all the other losses of literature in comparison with this .'' 



THE PENTAMERON. 2/ 

letters) by which traders cast up accounts ? The Phoenicians 
traded largely with every coast of the ^gean Sea, and among 
their earliest correspondents were the inhabitants of the Greek 
maritime cities, insular and continental. Is it credible that 
Cyprus, that Crete, that Attica, should be ignorant of the most 
obvious means by which commerce was maintained ; or that 
such means should be restricted to commerce among a people 
so pecuUarly fitted for social intercourse, so inquisitive, so 
imaginative, as the Greeks ? 

Petrarca. Certainly it is not. 

Boccaccio. The Greeks were the most creative, the Romans 
the least creative, of mankind. No Roman ever invented any- 
thing. Whence then are derived the only two works of im- 
agination we find among them, — the story of the " Ephesian i 
Matron," and the story of "Psyche"? Doubtless from some 
country farther eastward than Phoenicia and Egypt. The authors 
in which we find these insertions are of little intrinsic worth. 

When the Thracians became better known^ to the Greeks 
they turned their backs upon them as worn-out wonders, and 
looked toward the inexhaustible Hyperboreans. Among these 
too were wisdom and the arts, and mounted instruments 
through which a greater magnitude was given to the stars. 

Petrarca. I will remain no longer with you among the 
Thracians or the Hyperboreans. But in regard to low and 
level countries, as unproductive of poetry, I entreat you not to 
be too fanciful nor too exclusive. Virgil was born on the 
Mincio, and has rendered the city of his birth too celebrated 
to be mistaken. 

Boccaccio. He was born in the territory of Mantua, not in 
the city. He sang his first child's song on the shoulders "of the 
Apennines ; his first man's, under the shadow of Vesuvius. 

I would not assert that a great poet must necessarily be born 
on a high mountain, — no, indeed, no such absurdity ; but where 
the climate is hot, the plains have never shown themselves 
friendly to the imaginative faculties. We surely have more 
buoyant spirits on the mountain than below; but it is not 

1 One similar, and better conceived, is given by Du Halde from tlie 
Chinese. If the fiction of Psyche had reached Greece so early as the 
time of Plato, it would have caught his attention, and he would have 
delivered it down to us, however altered. 



28 THE PENTAMERON, 

requisite for this effect that our cradles should have been 
placed on it. 

Petrarca. What will you say about Pindar? 

Boccaccio. I think it more probable that he was reared in 
the vicinity of Thebes than within the walls. For Bosotia, like 
our Tuscany, has one large plain, but has also many eminences, 
and is bounded on two sides by hills. 

Look at the vale of Capua ! Scarcely so much as a sonnet 
was ever heard from one end of it to the other ; perhaps the 
most spirited thing was some Carthaginian glee, from a soldier 
in the camp of Hannibal. Nature seems to contain in her 
breast the same milk for all, but feeding one for one aptitude, 
another for another ; and as if she would teach him a lesson 
as soon as he could look about him, she has placed the poet 
where the air is unladen with the exhalations of luxuriance. 

Petrarca. In my delight to listen to you after so long an 
absence, I have been too unwary ; and you have been speak- 
ing too much for one infirm. Greatly am I to blame, not to 
have moderated my pleasure and your vivacity. You must 
rest now : to-morrow we will renew our conversation. 

Boccaccio. God bless thee, Francesco ! I shall be talking 
with thee all night in my slumbers. Never have I seen thee 
with such pleasure as to-day, excepting when I was deemed 
worthy by our fellow-citizens of bearing to thee, and of placing 
within this dear hand of thine, the sentence of recall from ban- 
ishment, and when my tears streamed over the ordinance as I 
read it, whereby thy paternal lands were redeemed from the 
public treasury. 

Again, God bless thee ! Those tears were not quite ex- 
hausted : take the last of them. 



SECOND DAY'S INTERVIEW. 

Petrarca. How have you slept, Giovanni ? 

Boccaccio. Pleasantly, soundly, and quite long enough. 
You too, methinks, have enjoyed the benefit of riding ; for 
you either slept well or began late. Do you rise in general 
three hours after the sun? 



THE PENTAMERON. 29 

Petrarca. No, indeed. 

Boccaccio. As for me, since you would not indulge me 
with your company an hour ago, I could do nothing more de- 
lightful than to look over some of your old letters. 

Petrarca. Ours are commemorative of no reproaches, and 
laden with no regrets. Far from us 

" With drooping wing the spell-bound spirit moves 
O'er flickering friendships and extinguished loves." 

Boccaccio. Ay, but as I want no record of your kindness 
now you are with me, I have been looking over those to other 
persons on past occasions. In the Latin one to the tribune, 
whom the people at Rome usually call Rienzi, I find you 
address him by the denomination of Nicolaus Laurentii. Is 
this the right one? 

Petrarca. As we Florentines are fond of omitting the first 
syllable in proper names, — calling Luigi Gigi, Giovanni Nanni, 
Francesco Cecco, — in like manner at Rome they say Renzi for 
Lorenzi, and by another corruption it has been pronounced and 
written Rienzi. Beheve me, I should never have ventured to 
address the personage who held and supported the highest dig- 
nity on earth until I had ascertained his appellation ; for nobody 
ever quite forgave, unless in the low and ignorant, a wrong pro- 
nunciation of his name, — the humblest being of opinion that they 
have one of their owh, and one both worth having and worth 
knowing. Even dogs, they observe, are not miscalled. It 
would have been as Latin in sound, if not in structure, to write 
Rientiits as Laurentius ; but it would certainly have been offen- 
sive to a dignitary of his station, as being founded on a sportive 
and somewhat childish familiarity. 

Boccaccio. Ah, Francesco ! we were a good deal younger in 
those days ; and hopes sprang up before us like mushrooms : 
the sun produced them, the shade produced them, every hill, 
every valley, every busy and every idle hour. 

Petrarca. The season of hope precedes but little the season 
of disappointment. Where the ground is unprepared, what 
harvest can be expected ? Men bear wrongs more easily than 
irritations ; and the Romans, who had sunk under worse degra- 
dation than any other people on record, rose up against the 
deliverer who ceased to consult their ignorance. I speak 



30 THE PENTAMERON. 

advisedly and without rhetoric on the foul depths of their de- 
basement. The Jews, led captive into Egypt and into Babylon, 
were left as little corrupted as they were found ; and perhaps 
some of their vices were corrected by the labors that were 
imposed on them. But the subjugation of the Romans was 
effected by the depravation of their morals, which the priest- 
hood took away, giving them ceremonies and promises instead. 
God had indulged them in the exercise of power; first the 
kings abused it, then the consuls, then the tribunes. One only 
magistrate was remaining who never had violated it, further 
than in petty frauds and fallacies suited to the occasion, not 
having at present more within his reach. It was now his turn 
to exercise his functions, and no less grievously and despotically 
than the preceding had done. For this purpose the Pontifex 
Maximus needed some slight alterations in the popular belief, 
and he collected them from that Pantheon which Roman 
policy had enlarged at every conquest. The priests of Isis had 
acquired the highest influence in the city : those of Jupiter 
were jealous that foreign gods should become more than sup- 
plementary and subordinate ; but as the women in general 
leaned toward Isis, it was in vain to contest the point, and 
prudent to adopt a little at a time from the discipline of the 
shaven brotherhood. The names and titles of the ancient 
gods had received many additions, and they were often 
asked which they liked best. Different ones were now given 
them ; and gradually, here and there, the older dropped into 
desuetude. Then arose the star in the east; and all was 
manifested. 

Boccaccio. Ay, ay ! but the second company of shepherds 
sang to a different tune from the first, and put them out. 
Trumpeters ran in among them, horses neighed, tents waved 
their pennons, and commanders of armies sought to raise 
themselves to supreme authority, some by leading the faction 
of the ancient faith, and some by supporting the recenter. At 
last the priesthood succeeded to the power of the praetorian 
guard, and elected, or procured the election of, an emperor. 
Every man who loved peace and quiet took refuge in a sanct- 
uary, now so efficient to protect him ; and nearly all who had 
attained a preponderance in wisdom and erudition, brought 
them to bear against the worn-out and tottering institutions, 



THE PENTAMERON. 3 I 

and finally to raise up the coping-stone of an edifice which 
overtopped them all. 

Petrarca. At present we fly to princes as we fly to caves 
and arches, and other things of the mere earth, for shelter and 
protection. 

Boccaccio. And when they afford it at all they afford it with 
as httle care and knowledge. Like Egyptian embalmers, they 
cast aside the brains as useless or worse, but carefully swathe 
up all that is viler and heavier, and place it in their painted 
catacombs. 

Petrarca. What Dante saw in his day we see in ours. The 
danger is, lest first the wiser, and soon afterward the unwiser, 
in abhorrence at the presumption and iniquity of the priest- 
hood, should abandon religion altogether, when it is forbidden 
to approach her without such company. 

Boccaccio. Philosophy is but the calyx of that plant of para- 
dise, religion. Detach it, and it dies away; meanwhile the 
plant itself, supported by its proper nutriment, retains its vigor. 

Petrarca. The, good citizen and the calm reasoner come 
at once to the same conclusion, — that philosophy can never 
hold many men together ; that religion can, — and those who 
without it would not let philosophy, nor law, nor humanity 
exist. Therefore it is our duty and interest to remove all 
obstruction from it ; to give it air, hght, space, and freedom, — 
carrying in our hands a scourge for fallacy, a chain for cruelty, 
and an irrevocable ostracism for riches that riot in the house 
of God. 

Boccaccio. Moderate wealth is quite enough to teach with. 

Petrarca. The luxury and rapacity of the Church, together 
with the insolence of the barons, excited that discontent which 
emboldened Nicolo di Rienzi to assume the station of tribune. 
Singular was the prudence, and opportune the boldness, he 
manifested at first. His modesty, his piety, his calm severity, 
his unbiassed justice, won to him the affections of every good 
citizen, and struck horror into the fastnesses of every castel- 
lated felon. He might by degrees have restored the repubhc 
of Rome had he preserved his moderation ; ,he might have be- 
come the master of Italy had he continued the master of him- 
self; but he allowed the weakest of the passions to run away with 
him. He fancied he could not inebriate himself soon enough 



32 THE PENTAMERON. 

with the intemperance of power. He called for seven crowns, 
and placed them successively on his head; he cited Lewis 
of Bavaria and Charles of Bohemia to appear and plead their 
causes before him ; and lastly, not content with exasperating 
and concentrating the hostihty of barbarians, he set at defiance 
the best and highest feelings of his more instructed country- 
men, and displayed his mockery of religion and decency by 
bathing in the porphyry font of the Lateran. How my soul 
grieved for his defection ! How bitterly burst forth my com- 
plaints, when he ordered the imprisonment of Stefano Colonna 
in his ninetieth year ! For these atrocities you know with what 
reproaches I assailed him, traitor as he was to the noblest cause 
that ever strung the energies of mankind. For this cause, 
under his auspices, I had abandoned all hope of favor and pro- 
tection from the pontiff; I had cast into peril, almost into per- 
dition, the friendship, famiharity, and love of the Coloimas. 
Even you, Giovanni, thought me more rash than you would 
say you thought me, and wondered at seeing me whirled along 
with the tempestuous triumphs that seemed mounting toward 
the Capitol. It is only in politics that an actor appears greater 
by the magnitude of the theatre ; and we readily and enthu- 
siastically give way to the deception. Indeed, whenever a 
man capable of performing great and glorious actions is emerg- 
ing from obscurity, it is our duty to remove, if we can, all 
obstruction from before him ; to increase his scope and his 
powers, to extol and amplify his virtues. This is always 
requisite, and often insufficient to counteract the workings of 
malignity round about him. But finding him afterward false 
and cruel, and instead of devoting himself to the common- 
wealth, exhausting it by his violence and sacrificing it to his 
vanity, then it behooves us to stamp the foot, and to call in the 
people to cast down the idol. For nothing is so immoral or 
pernicious as to keep up ^the illusion of greatness in wicked 
men. Their crimes, because they have fallen into the gulf of 
them, we call misfortunes ; and amid ten thousand mourners, 
grieve only for him who made them so. Is this reason, is 
this humanity? 

Boccaccio. Alas ! it is man. 

Petrarca. Can we wonder, then, that such wretches have 
turned him to such purposes? The calmness, the sagacity, the 



THE PENTAMERON. 33 

sanctitude of Rienzi, in the ascent to his elevation, rendered 
him only the more detestable for his abuse of power. 

Boccaccio. Surely, the man grew mad. 

Petrarca. Men often give the hand to the madness that 
seizes them. He yielded to pride and luxury ; behind them 
came jealousy and distrust : fear followed these, and. cruelty 
followed fear. Then the intellects sought the subterfuge that 
bewildered them ; and an ignoble flight was precluded by an 
ignominious death. 

Boccaccio. No mortal is less to be pitied, or more to be 
detested, than he into whose hands are thrown the fortunes of 
a nation, and who squanders them away in the idle gratification 
of his pride and his ambition. Are not these already gratified 
to the full by the confidence and deference of his countrymen ? 
Can silks and the skins of animals, can hammered metals and 
sparkling stones, enhance the value of legitimate dominion 
over the human heart ? Can a wise man be desirous of having 
a less 'wise successor? — and, of all the world, would he ex- 
hibit this inferiority in a son? Irrational as are all who aim at 
despotism, this is surely the most irrational of their specu- 
lations. Vulgar men are more anxious for title and decoration 
than for power ; and notice, in their estimate, is preferable to 
regard. We ought as little to mind the extinction of such ex- 
istences as the dying- down of a favorable wind in the prose- 
cution of a voyage. They are fitter for the calendar than for 
history, and it is well when we find them in last year's. 

Petrarca. What a year was Rienzi's last to me ! What an 
extinction of all that had not been yet extinguished ! Vision- 
ary as was the flash of his glory, there was another more truly 
so, which this, my second great loss and sorrow, opened again 
before me. 

Verona ! loveliest of cities, but saddest to my memory ! while 
the birds were singing in thy cypresses the earliest notes of 
spring, the blithest of hope, the tenderest of desire, she my 
own Laura, fresh as the dawn around her, stood before me. 
It was her transit ; I knew it ere she spake. ^ 

Giovanni ! the heart that has once been bathed in love's 
pure fountain, retains the pulse of youth forever. Death can 

1 This event is related by Petrarca as occurring on the 6th of April, 
the day of her decease. 

3 



34 THE PENTAMERON, 

only take away the sorrowful from our affections : the flower ex- 
pands ; the colorless film that enveloped it falls off and perishes. 

Boccaccio. We may well believe it : and believing it, let us 
cease to be disquieted for their absence who have but retired 
into another chamber. We are like those who have overslept 
the hour : when we rejoin our friends, there is only the more 
joyance and congratulation. Would we break a precious vase, 
because it is as capable of containing the bitter as the sweet? 
No : the very things which touch us the most sensibly are 
those which we should be the most reluctant to forget. The 
noble mansion is most distinguished by the beautiful images 
it retains of beings passed away ; and so is the noble mind. 

The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them 
for the necessity of their fall : and thus insensibly are we, as 
years close round us, detached from our tenacity of life by the 
gentle pressure of recorded sorrows. When the graceful dance 
and its animating music are over, and the clapping of hands 
(so lately linked) hath ceased ; when youth and comeliness 
and pleasantry are departed, — 

' Who would desire to spend the following day 
Among the extinguished lamps, the faded wreaths, 
The dust and desolation left behind ? " 

But whether we desire it or not, we must sfibmit. He who 
hath appointed our days hath placed their contents within 
them, and our efforts can neither cast them out nor change 
their quality. In our present mood we will not dwell too long 
on this subject, but rather walk forth into the world, and look 
back again on the bustle of life. Neither of us may hope to 
exert in future any extraordinary influence on the political 
movements of our country by our presence or intervention ; 
yet surely it is something to have set at defiance the merce- 
naries who assailed us, and to have stood aloof from the distri- 
bution of the public spoils. I have at all times taken less 
interest than you have taken in the affairs of Rome ; for the 
people of that city neither are, nor were of old, my favorites. 
It appears to me that there are spots accursed, spots doomed 
to eternal sterility ; and Rome is one of them. No gospel an- 
nounces the glad tidings of resurrection to a fallen nation : 
once down, and down forever. The Babylonians, the Mace- 
donians, the Romans, prove it. Babylon is a desert, Macedon 



THE PENTAMERON. 35 

a den of thieves, Rome (what is written as an invitation on 
the walls of her streets) one vast immondezzaio, morally and 
substantially. 

Petrarca. The argument does not hold good throughout. 
Persia was conquered : yet Persia long afterward sprang up 
again with renovated strength and courage, and Sapor mounted 
his war-horse from the crouching neck of Valentinian. In 
nearly all the campaigns with the Romans she came ofif victo- 
rious ; none of her icings or generals was ever led in triumph 
to the Capitol, but several Roman emperors lay prostrate on 
their purple in the fields of Parthia. Formidable at home, 
victorious over friends and relatives, their legions had seized 
and subdivided the arable plains of Campania and the exuber- 
ant pastures of the Po ; but the glebe that bordered the Araxes 
was unbroken by them. Persia, since those times, has passed 
through many vicissitudes of defeat and victory, of obscurity and 
glory, and why may not our country ? Let us take hopes where 
we can find them, and raise them where we find none. 

Boccaccio. In some places we may ; in others, the fabric of 
hopes is too arduous an undertaking. When I was in Rome, 
nothing there reminded me of her former state until I saw a 
goose in the grass under the Capitoline hill. This perhaps 
was the only one of her inhabitants that had not degenerated. 
Even the dogs looked sleepy, mangy, suspicious, perfidious, 
and thievish. The goose meanwhile was making his choice of 
herbage about triumphal arches and monumental columns, and 
picking up worms, — the surest descendants, the truest represen- 
tatives, and enjoying the inalienable succession, of the Csesars. 
This is all that goose or man can do at Rome. She, I think, 
will be the last city to rise from the dead. 

Petrarca. There is a trumpet, and on earth, that shall 
awaken even her. 

Boccaccio. I should like to live and be present. 

Petrarca. This cannot be expected. But you may live many 
years, and see many things to make you happy. For you will not 
close the doors too early in the evening of existence against the 
visits of renovating and cheerful thoughts, which keep our lives 
long up, and help them to sink at last without pain or pressure. 

Boccaccio. Another year or two perhaps, with God's permis- 
sion. Fra Biagio felt my pulse on Wednesday, and cried, — 



36 THE PENTAMERON. 

" Courage ! Ser Giovanni ! there is no danger of paradise yet — 
the Lord forbid ! 

" Faith ! " said I, " Fra Biagio, I hope there is not. What 
with prayers and masses, I have planted a foot against my old 
homestead, and will tug hard to remain where I am. " 

"A true soldier of the faith ! " quoth Fra Biagio, and drank 
a couple of flasks to my health. Nothing else, he swore to 
Assunta, would have induced him to venture beyond one, — he 
hating all excesses, they give the adversary such advantage 
over us ; although God is merciful and makes allowances. 

Petrarca. Impossible as it is to look far and with pleasure 
into the future, what a privilege is it, how incomparably greater 
than any other that genius can confer, to be able to direct the 
backward flight of fancy and imagination to the recesses they 
most delighted in ! to be able, as the shadows lengthen in our 
path, to call up before us the youth of our sympathies in all 
their tenderness and purity ! 

Boccaccio. Mine must have been very pure, I suspect, for 
I am sure they were very tender. But I need not call them 
up, — they come readily enough of their own accord ; and I 
find it perplexing at times to get entirely rid of them. Sighs 
are very troublesome when none meet them half-way. The 
worst of mine now are while I am walking up hill. Even to 
walk upstairs, which used occasionally to be as pleasant an ex- 
ercise as any, grows sadly too much for me. For which reason 
I lie here below ; and it is handier too for Assunta. 

Petrarca. Very judicious and considerate. In high situa- 
tions, like Certaldo and this villetta, there is no danger 
from fogs or damps of any kind. The skylark yonder seems 
to have made it her first station in the air. 

Boccaccio. To welcome thee, Francesco ! 

Petrarca. Rather say, to remind us both of our Dante. 
All the verses that ever were written on the nightingale are 
scarcely worth the beautiful triad of this divine poet on the lark. 

" La lodoletta che in aere si spazia, 
Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta 
Deir ultima dolcezza che la sazia." 

In the first of them do not you see the twinkling of her wings 
against the sky? As often as I repeat them my ear is satisfied, 
my heart (like hers) contented. 



THE PENTAMERON, 37 

Boccaccio. I agree with you in the perfect and unrivalled 
beauty of the first ; but in the third there is a redundance. Is 
not contenta quite enough, without che la sazia ? The picture 
is before us, the sentiment within us, and behold ! we kick 
when we are full of manna. 

Pefrarca. I acknowledge the correctness and propriety of 
your remark ; and yet beauties in poetry must be examined as 
carefully as blemishes, and even more, for we are more easily 
led away by them, although we do not dwell on them so long. 
We two should never be accused, in these days, of malevolence 
to Dante, if the whole world heard us. Being here alone, we 
may hazard our opinions even less guardedly, and set each 
other right as we see occasion. 

Boccaccio. Come on then ! I will venture. I will go back 
to find fault ; I will seek it even in Francesca. 

To hesitate, and waver, and turn away from the subject was 
proper and befitting in her. The verse, however, in no respect 
satisfies me. Any one would imagine from it that Galeotto was 
really both the title of the book and the name of the author ; 
neither of which is true. Galeotto, in the "Tavola Ritonda, " 
is the person who interchanges the correspondence between 
Lancilotto and Ginevra. The appellation is now become the 
generic of all men whose business it is to promote the success 
of others in illicit love. Dante was stimulated in his satirical 
vein when he attributed to Francesca a ludicrous expression, 
which she was very unlikely in her own nature, and greatly 
more so in her state of suffering, to employ or think of, whirled 
round as she was incessantly with her lover. Neither was it 
requisite to say " the book was a Galeotto, and so was the 
author, " when she had said already that a passage in it had 
seduced her. Omitting this unnecessary and ungraceful line, 
her confusion and her delicacy are the more evident, and the 
following comes forth with fresh beauty. In the commence- 
ment of her speech I wish these had likewise been omitted, — 

" E cio sa 11 tuo dottore," — 

since he- knew no more about it than anybody else. As we 
proceed, there are passages in which I cannot find my way, 
and where I suspect the poet could not show it me. For in- 
stance, is it not strange that Briareus should be punished in the 



38 THE PENTAMERON. 

same way as Nimrod, when Nimrod sinned against the Uving 
God, and when Briareus attempted to overthrow one of the 
living God's worst antagonists, Jupiter? — an action which our 
blessed Lord and the doctors of the Holy Church not only 
attempted, but (to their glory and praise for evermore) 
accomphshed. 

Petrarca. Equally strange that Brutus and Cassius (a re- 
mark which escaped us in our mention of them yesterday) 
should be placed in the hottest pit of hell for slaying Caesar, 
and that Cato, who would have done the same thing with less 
compunction, should be appointed sole guardian and governor 
of purgatory. 

Boccaccio. What interest could he have made to be pro- 
moted to so valuable a post in preference to doctors, popes, 
confessors, and fathers ? Wonderful indeed ! and they never 
seemed to take it much amiss. 

Petrarca. Alighieri not only throws together the most op- 
posite and distant characters, but even makes Jupiter and our 
Saviour the same person, — 

" E se lecito m ' e, o sommo Giove ! 
Che fosti in terra per noi crocijisso." 

Boccaccio. Jesus Christ ought no more to be called Jupiter 
than Jupiter ought to be called Jesus Christ. 

Petrarca. In the whole of the " Inferno " I find only the 
descriptions of Francesca and of Ugolino at all admirable. 
Vigorous expressions there are many, but lost in their appli- 
cation to base objects ; and insulated thoughts in high relief, 
but with everything crumbling round them. Proportionally to 
the extent, there is a scantiness of poetry, if delight is the 
purpose or indication of it. Intensity shows everywhere the 
powerful master ; and yet intensity is not invitation. A great 
poet may do everything but repel us. Established laws are 
pliant before him : nevertheless, his office hath both its duties 
and its limits. 

Boccaccio. The simile in the third canto, the satire at the 
close of the fourth, and the description at the commencement 
of the eighth, if not highly admirable, are what no ordinary 
poet could have produced. 

Petrarca. They are streaks of light in a thunder-cloud. 



THE PENTAMERON. 39 

You might have added the beginning of the twenty-seventh, in 
which the poetry of itself is good, although not excellent, and 
the subject of it assuages the weariness left on us, after passing 
through so many holes and furnaces, and undergoing the dia- 
logue between Simon and master Adam. 

Boccaccio. I am sorry to be reminded of this. It is like the 
brawl of the two fellows in Horace's "Journey to Brundusium." 
They are the straitest parallels of bad wit and bad poetry that 
ancient and modem times exhibit. Ought I to speak so sharply 
of poets who elsewhere have given me so great delight? 

Petrarca. Surely you ought. No criticism is less beneficial 
to an author or his reader than one tagged with favor and 
tricked with courtesy. The gratification of our humors is not 
the intent and scope of criticism, and those who indulge in it 
on such occasions are neither wise nor honest. 

Boccaccio. I never could see why we should designedly 
and prepensely give to one writer more than his due, to another 
less. If we offer an honest man ten crowns when we owe him 
only five, he is apt to be offended. The perfumer and drug- 
gist weigh out the commodity before them to a single grain. 
If they do it with odors and powders, should not we attempt it 
likewise, in what is either the nutriment or the medicine of the 
mind ? I do not wonder that Criticism has never yet been 
clear-sighted and expert among us : I do, that she has never 
been dispassionate and unprejudiced. There are critics who, 
lying under no fear of a future state in literature, and all whose 
hope is for the present day, commit injustice without com- 
punction. Every one of these people has some favorite object 
for the embraces of his hatred, and a figure of straw will never 
serve the purpose. He must throw his stone at what stands 
out ; he must twitch the skirt of him who is ascending. Do 
you imagine that the worst writers of any age were treated with 
as much asperity as you and I ? No, Francesco ! give the good 
folks their due : they are humaner to their fellow-creatures. 

Petrarca. Disregarding the ignorant and presumptuous, we 
have strengthened our language by dipping it afresh in its purer 
and higher source, and have called the Graces back to it. We 
never have heeded how Jupiter would have spoken, but only 
how the wisest men would, and how words follow the move- 
ments of the mind. There are rich and copious veins of 



40 THE PENTAMERON. 

mineral in regions far remote from commerce and habitations : 
these veins are useless ; so are those writings of which the 
style is uninviting and inaccessible through its ruggedness, its 
chasms, its points, its perplexities, its obscurity. There are 
scarcely three authors, besides yourself, who appear to heed 
whether any guest will enter the gate, quite satisfied with the 
consciousness that they have stores within. Such wealth in 
another generation may be curious, but cannot be current. 
When a language grows up all into stalk, and its flowers begin 
to. lose somewhat of their character, we must go forth into the 
open fields, through the dingles, and among the mountains 
for fresh seed. Our ancestors did this, no very long time ago. 
Foremost in zeal, in vigor, and authority, Ahghieri took on him- 
self the same patronage and guardianship of our adolescent 
dialect as Homer of the Greek ; and my Giovanni hath since 
endowed it so handsomely that additional bequests, we may 
apprehend, will only corrupt its principles, and render it lax 
and lavish. 

Boccaccio. Beware of violating those canons of criticism 
you have just laid down. We have no right to gratify one by 
misleading another, nor, when we undertake to show the road, 
to bandage the eyes of him who trusts us for his conductor. 
In regard to censure, those only speak ill who speak untruly, — 
unless a truth be barbed by malice and aimed by passion. To 
be useful to as many as possible is the especial duty of a critic, 
and his utility can be attained only by rectitude and precision. 
He walks in a garden which is not his own ; and he neither 
must gather the blossoms to embellish his discourse, nor break 
the branches to display his strength. Rather let him point to 
what is out of order, and help to raise what is lying on the 
ground. 

Petrarca. Auditors, and readers in general, come to hear 
or read, not your opinion delivered, but their own repeated. 
Fresh notions are as disagreeable to some as fresh air to others ; 
and this inability to bear them is equally a symptom of disease. 
Impatience and intolerance are sure to be excited at any check 
to admiration in the narratives of Ugolino and of FranCesca. 
Nothing is to be abated : they are not only to be admirable, 
but entirely faultless. 

Boccaccio. You have proved to me that in blaming our 



THE PENTAMERON. 4 1 

betters we ourselves may sometimes be unblamed. When 
authors are removed by death beyond the reach of irritation 
at the touch of an infirmity, we best consult their glory by 
handling their works comprehensively and unsparingly. Vague 
and indefinite criticism suits only slight merit, and presupposes 
it. Lineaments irregular and profound as Dante's are worthy 
of being traced with patience and fidelity. In the charts of 
our globe we find distinctly marked the promontories and in- 
dentations, and oftentimes the direction of unprofitable marshes 
and impassable sands and wildernesses : level surfaces are un- 
noted. I would not detract one atom from the worth of Dante, 
which cannot be done by summing it up exactly, but may be 
by negligence in the computation. 

Petrarca. Your business in the lectures is not to show his 
merits, but his meaning, and to give only so much information 
as may be given without oifence to the factious. Whatever you 
do beyond is for yourself, your friends, and futurity. 

Boccaccio. I may write more lectures, but never shall deliver 
them in person, as the first. Probably, so near as I am to 
Florence, and so dear as Florence hath always been to me, I 
shall see that city no more. The last time I saw it, I only 
passed through. Four years ago, you remember, I lost my 
friend Acciaioli. Early in the summer of the preceding, his 
kindness had induced him to invite me again to Naples, and I 
undertook a journey to the place where my life had been too 
happy. There are many who pay dearly for sunshine early in 
the season : many, for pleasure in the prime of life. After one 
day lost in idleness at Naples, if intense and incessant thoughts 
(however fruitless) may be called so, I proceeded by water to 
Sorrento, and thence over the mountains to Amalfi. Here, 
amid whatever is most beautiful and most wonderful in scenery, 
I found the Seniscalco. His palace, his gardens, his terraces, 
his woods, abstracted his mind entirely from the solicitudes of 
State ; and I was gratified at finding in the absolute ruler of a 
kingdom the absolute master of his time. Rare felicity ! and 
he enjoyed it the more after the toils of business and the intri- 
cacies of policy. His reception of me was most cordial. He 
showed me his long avenues of oranges and citrons ; he helped 
me to mount the banks of slippery short herbage, whence we 
could look down on their dark masses, and their broad irregular 



42 THE PENTAMERON. 

belts, gemmed with golden fruit and sparkling flowers. We 
stood high above them, but not above their fragrance ; and 
sometimes we wished the breeze to bring us it, and sometimes 
to carry a part of it away, — and the breeze came and went as 
if obedient to our vohtion. Another day he conducted me far- 
ther from the palace, and showed me. with greater pride than 
I had ever seen in him before, the pale-green ohves, on little 
smooth plants, the first year of their bearing. " I will teach 
my people here," said he, "to make as delicate oil as any of 
our Tuscans." We had feasts among the caverns ; we had 
dances by day under the shade of the mulberries, by night 
under the lamps of the arcade ; we had music on the shore 
and on the water. 

When next I stood before him it was afar from these. 
Torches flamed through the pine forest of the Certosa ; priests 
and monks led the procession ; the sound of the brook alone 
filled up the intervals of the dirge, and other plumes than the 
dancers' waved round what was Acciaioli. 

Petrarca. Since in his family there was nobody who, from 
education or pursuits or consanguinity, could greatly interest 
him, — nobody to whom so large an accumulation of riches 
would not rather be injurious than beneficial, and place rather 
in the way of scoffs and carpings than exalt to respectability, — 
I regret that he omitted to provide for the comforts of your 
advancing years. 

Boccaccio. The friend would not spoil the philosopher. Our 
judgment grows the stronger by the dying-down of our affections. 

Petrarca. With a careful politician and diplomatist all 
things find their places but men ; and yet he thinks he has 
niched it nicely, when, as the gardener is left in the garden, the 
tailor on his board at the casement, he leaves the author at his 
desk : to remove him would put the world in confusion. 

Boccaccio. Acciaioli knew me too well to suppose we could 
serve each other; and his own capacity was amply sufficient 
for all the exigencies of the State. Generous,^ kind, constant 
soul ! the emblazoned window throws now its rich mantle over 
him, moved gently by the vernal air of Marignole, or, as the 
great chapel door is opened to some visitor of distinction, by 

1 This sentiment must be attributed to the gratitude of Boccaccio, not 
to the merits of Acciaioli, who treated him unworthily. 



THE PENTAMERON. 43 

the fresh eastern breeze from the valley of the Elsa. We too 
(mayhap) shall be visited in the same condition, but in a 
homelier edifice, but in a humbler sepulchre, but by other and 
far different guests ! While they are discussing and sorting out 
our merits, which are usually first discovered among the nettles 
in the church-yard, we will carry this volume with us, and show 
Dante what we have been doing. 

Petrarca. We have each of us had our warnings ; indeed, 
all men have them, — and not only at our time of life, but 
almost every day of their existence. They come to us even in 
youth ; although, like the lightnings that are said to play in- 
cessantly, in the noon and in the morning and throughout the 
year, we seldom see and never look for them. Come, as you 
proposed, let us now continue with our Dante. 

TJgolino relates to him his terrible dream, in which he fan- 
cied that he had seen Gualando, Sismondi, and Lanfranco, 
killing his children ; and he says that when he awakened he 
heard them moan in their sleep. In such circumstances his 
awakening ought rather to have removed the impression he 
labored under, since it showed him the vanity of the dream, 
and afforded him the consolation that the children were alive. 
Yet he adds immediately, what, if he were to speak it at all, 
he should have deferred, — 

" You are very cruel if you do not begin to grieve, consider- 
ing what my heart presaged to me ; and if you do not weep at 
it, what is it you are wont to weep at? " 

Boccaccio. Certainly this is ill-timed ; and the conference 
would indeed be better without it anywhere. 

Petrarca. Farther on, in whatever way we interpret 

" Poscia piu che '1 dolor pote '1 digiuno," 

the poet falls sadly from his sublimity. 

Boccaccio. If the fact were as he mentions he should have 
suppressed it, since we had already seen the most pathetic in 
the features, and the most horrible in the stride, of Famine. 
Gnawing, not in hunger but in rage and revenge, the arch- 
bishop's skull is, in the opinion of many, rather ludicrous than 
tremendous. 

Petrarca. In mine, rather disgusting than ludicrous ; but 
Dante (we must whisper it) is the great master of the disgust- 



44 THE PENTAMERON. 

ing. When the ancients wrote indecently and loosely, they 
presented what either had something alluring or something 
laughable about it ; and if they disgusted, it was involuntarily. 
Indecency is the most shocking in deformity. We call inde- 
cent, while we do not think it, the nakedness of the Graces 
and the Loves. 

Boccaccio. When we are less barbarous we shall become 
more familiar with them, more tolerant of sliding beauty, more 
hospitable to erring passion, and perhaps as indulgent to frailty 
as we now are to ferocity. I wish I could find in some epi- 
taph, " He loved so many : " it is better than, " He killed so 
many." Yet the world hangs in admiration over this : you and 
I should be found alone before the other. 

Petrarca. Of what value are all the honors we can expect 
from the wisest of our species, when even the wisest hold us 
lighter in estimation than those who labor to destroy what God 
dehghted to create, came on earth to ransom, and suffered on 
the cross to save ! Glory then, glory can it be, to devise with 
long study, and to execute with vast exertions, what the fang 
of a reptile or the leaf of a weed accomplishes in an hour? 
Shall any one tell me that the numbers sent to death or to 
wretchedness make the difference, and constitute the great? 
Away then from the face of Nature as we see her' daily ! away 
from the interminable varieties of animated creatures ! away 
from what is fixed to the earth and lives by the sun and dew ! 
Brute inert matter does it : behold it in the pestilence, in the 
earthquake, in the conflagration, in the deluge ! 

Boccaccio. Perhaps we shall not be liked the better for 
what we ourselves have written ; yet I do believe we shall be 
thanked for having brought to light, and for having sent into 
circulation, the writings of other men. We deserve as much, 
were it only that it gives people an opportunity of nmning over 
us (as ants over the images of gods in orchards), and of reach- 
ing by our means the less crude fruits of less ungenial days. 
Be this as it may, we have spent our time well in doing it, and 
enjoy (what idlers never can) as pleasant a view in looking 
back as forward. 

Now do tell me, before we say more of the " Paradiso," 
what can I offer in defence of the Latin scraps from litanies 
and lauds, to the number of fifty or thereabout? 



THE PENTAMERON. 45 

Petrarca. Say nothing at all, unless you can obtain some 
Indulgences for repeating them. 

Boccaccio. And then such verses as these, and several score 
of no better : — 

" I credo ch' ei credette ch' io credessi, 
O Jacomo, dicea, di Sant Andrea, 
Come Livio scrisse, che non erra, 
Nel quale un cinque cento dieci e cinque, 
Mille ducento con sessanta sei. 
Pepe Satan, Pepe Satan, Pepe. 
Raffael mai a77iec, zabe, almi. 
Non avria pur dell orlo fatto crick.''* 

Petrarca. There is no occasion to look into and investigate 
a puddle, — we perceive at first sight its impurity ; but it is use- 
fiil to analyze, if we can, a limpid and sparkling water, in which 
the common observer finds nothing but transparency and fresh- 
ness, for in this, however the idle and ignorant ridicule our 
process, we may exhibit what is unsuspected, and separate 
what is insalubrious. We must do, then, for our poet that 
which other men do for themselves ; we must defend him by 
advancing the best authority for something as bad or worse ; 
and although it puzzle our ingenuity, yet we may almost make 
out in quantity, and quite in quality, our spicilege from Virgil 
himself. If younger men were present, I would admonish and 
exhort them to abate no more of their reverence for the Roman 
poet on the demonstration of his imperfections, than of their 
love for a parent or guardian who had walked with them far 
into the country, and had shown them its many beauties and 
blessings, on his lassitude or his debility. Never will such 
men receive too much homage. He who can best discover 
their blemishes will best appreciate their merit, and most zeal- 
ously guard their honor. The flippancy with which genius is 
often treated by mediocrity, is the surest sign of a prostrate 
mind's incontinence and impotence. It will gratify the na- 
tional pride of our Florentines, if you show them how greatly 
the nobler parts of their fellow- citizen excel the loftiest of his 
Mantuan guide. 

Boccaccio. Of Virgil ? 

Petrarca. Even so. 

Boccaccio. He had no suspicion of his equality with this 



46 THE PENTAMERON. 

prince of Roman poets, whose footsteps he follows with rever- 
ential and submissive obsequiousness. 

Petrai-ca. Have you never observed that persons of high 
rank universally treat their equals with deference ; and that 
ill-bred ones are often smart and captious? Even their words 
are uttered with a brisk and rapid air, a tone higher than the 
natural, to sustain the factitious consequence and vaporing in- 
dependence they assume. Small critics and small poets take 
all this courage when they licentiously shut out the master; 
but Dante really felt the veneration he would impress. Sus- 
picion of his superiority he had none whatever, nor perhaps 
have you yourself much more. 

Boccaccio. I take all proper interest in my author ; I am 
sensible to the duties of a commentator ; but in truth I dare 
hardly entertain that exalted notion. I should have the whole 
world against me. 

Petrarca. You must expect it for any exalted notion, — for 
anything that so startles a prejudice as to arouse a suspicion 
that it may be dispelled. You must expect it if you throw 
open the windows of infection. Truth is only unpleasant in its 
novelty. He who first utters it, says to his hearer, " You are 
less wise than I am." Now, who likes this? 

Boccaccio. But surely if there are some very 'high places in 
our Alighieri, the inequalities are perpetual and vast ; whereas the 
regularity, the continuity, the purity of Virgil are proverbial. 

Petrarca. It is only in literature that what is proverbial is 
suspicious ; and mostly in poetry. Do we find in Dante, do 
we find in Ovid, such tautologies and flatnesses as these : — 

" Quam si dura silex — mit sfet Marpesia cautes 
Majus adorata nefas — majoremque orsa furorem. 
Arma amens capio — nee sat rationis in armis. 

Superatne — et vescitur aura 
^theria — neqiie adhiic criidelibus occubat umbris ? 
Omnes — ccelicolas — omnes supera alta tenentes. 

Scuta latentia cotidunt. 
Has inter voces — media inter talia verba. 
Finem dedit — ore loquendi. 
Insonuere cavae — sonitumque dedere cavernce. 
Ferro accitam — crebrisque bipennibiis. 
Nee nostri generis puerum — nee sanguinis." 

Boccaccio. These things look very ill in Latin, and yet they 
had quite escaped my observation. We often find in the 



THE PENTAMERON. 4/ 

Psalms of David one section of a sentence placed as it were 
in symmetry with another, and not at all supporting it by pre- 
senting the same idea. It is a species of piety to drop the 
nether lip in admiration; but in reality it is not only the 
modern taste that is vitiated, — the ancient is little less so, al- 
though differently. To say over again what we have just ceased 
to say, with nothing added, nothing improved, is equally bad 
in all languages and all times. 

Petrarca. But in these repetitions we may imagine one part 
of the chorus to be answering another part opposite. 

Boccaccio. Likely enough. However, you have ransacked 
poor Virgil to the skin, and have stripped him clean. 

Petrarca. Of all who have ever dealt with Winter, he is the 
most frost-bitten. Hesiod's description of the snowy season 
is more poetical and more formidable. What do you think of 
these icicles, — 

" CEraque dissiliunt vulgo ; vesterque rigescuttt" ? 

Boccaccio. Wretched faUing-off. 

Petrarca. He comes close enough presently, — 

" Stiriaque hirsutis dependent horrida barbis." 

We will withdraw from the Alps into the city. And now are 
you not smitten with reverence at seeing 

" Romanos rerum dominos ; gentemque togaiam ? 
The masters of the world — and long-tailed coats !^^ 

Come to Carthage. What a recommendation to a beautiful 
queen does ^neas offer, in himself and his associates ! 

" Lvpi ceil 
Raptores; atra in nebula, quos improha ventris 
Exegit csecos rabies ! " 

Ovid is censured for his 

" Consiliis non currihis utere nostris ; " 
Virgil never for 

" Inceptoqite et sedibics hjeret in iisdem," — 

the same in its quality, but more forced. 

The affectation of Ovid was light and playful ; Virgil's was 
wilful, perverse, and grammatistical. Are we therefore to sup- 



48 THE PENTAMERON. 

pose that every hand able to elaborate a sonnet may be raised 
up against the majesty of Virgil? Is ingratitude so rare and 
precious that we should prefer the exposure of his faults to 
the enjoyment of his harmony? He first delivered it to his 
countrymen in unbroken links under the form of poetry, and 
consoled them for the eloquent tongue that had withered on 
the Rostra. It would be no difficult matter to point out at 
least twenty bad passages in the ^neid, and a proportionate 
number of worse in the Georgics. In your comparison of poet 
with poet, the defects as well as the merits of each ought to 
be placed side by side. This is the rather to be expected, as 
Dante professes to be Virgil's disciple. You may easily show 
that his humility no more became him than his fierceness. 

Boccaccio. You have praised the harmony of the Roman 
poet. Now, in single verses I think our poetry is sometimes 
more harmonious than the Latin, but never in whole sentences. 
Advantage could perhaps be taken of our metre if we broke 
through the stanza. Our language is capable, I think, of all 
the vigor and expression of the Latin ; and in regard to the 
pauses in our versification, in which chiefly the harmony of 
metre consists, we have greatly the advantage. What for 
instance is more beautiful than your 

" Solo — e pensoso — i piu deserti campi 
Vo — misurando — a passi tardi — e lenti " ? 

Petrarca. My critics have found fault with the "lenti," 
calling it an expletive, and ignorant that equally in Italian and 
Latin the word signifies both slow and languid, while "tardi" 
signifies slow only. 

Boccaccio. Good poetry, like good music, pleases most 
people, but the ignorant and inexpert lose half its pleasures ; 
the invidious lose them all. What a paradise lost is here ! 

Petrarca. If we deduct the inexpert, the ignorant, and the 
invidious, can we correctly say it pleases most people? But 
either my worst compositions are the most admired, or the in- 
sincere and malignant bring them most forward for admiration, 
keeping the others in the background ! Sonneteers, in con- 
sequence, have started up from all quarters. 

Boccaccio. The sonnet seems peculiarly adapted to the 
languor of a melancholy and despondent love, the rhymes 



THE PENTAMERON. 49 

returning and replying to every plaint and every pulsation. 
Our poetasters are now converting it into the penfold and 
pound of stray thoughts and vagrant fancies. No sooner have 
they collected in their excursions as much matter as they con- 
veniently can manage, than they seat themselves down and 
set busily to work, punching it neatly out with a clever cubic 
stamp of fourteen lines in diameter. 

Petrarca. A pretty sonnet may be written on a lambkin or 
a parsnip, there being room enough for truth and tenderness 
on the edge of a leaf or the tip of an ear ; but a great poet 
must clasp the higher passions breast high, and compel them 
in an authoritative tone to answer his interrogatories. 

We will now return again to Virgil, and consider in what re- 
lation he stands to Dante. Our Tuscan and Homer are never 
inflated. 

Boccaccio. Pardon my interruption ; but do you find that 
Virgil is ? Surely he has always borne the character of the 
most chaste, the most temperate, the most judicious among 
the poets. 

Petrarca. And will not soon lose it. Yet never had there 
swelled, in the higher or the lower regions of poetry, such a 
gust as here in the exordium of the Georgics : — 

" Tuque adeo, quem mox quae sint habitura deorum 
Concilia incertum est, urbisne invisere, Caesar, 
Terrarumque velis curam, et te maximus orbis 
Auctorem f rugum ? — " 

Boccaccio. Already forestalled ! 
Petrarca. 

" — tempestatumque potentem." 

Boccaccio. Very strange coincidence of opposite qualifica- 
tions, truly. 
Petrarca. 

" Accipiat, cingens materna tempora myrto : 
An deus immensi venias maris — " 

Boccaccio. Surely he would not put down Neptune ! 
Petrarca. 

" — ac tua nautse 
Numina sola colant : tibi set-viat ultima Thule." 

Boccaccio. Catch him up ! catch him up ! uncoil the whole 

4 



50 THE PENTAMERON. 

of the vessel's rope ! never did man fall overboard so unluckily, 
or sink so deep on a sudden. 
Petrarca. 

" Teque sibi generum Tethys emai omnibus undis ? " 

Boccaccio. Nobody in his senses would bid against her. 
What indiscretion ! and at her time of life too ! 

" Tethys then really, most gallant Caesar, 
If you would only condescend to please her, 
With all her waves would your good graces buy. 
And you should govern all the Isle of Skie." 
Petrarca. 

" Anne novum tardis sidus te mensibus addas ? " 

Boccaccio. For what purpose ? If the months were slow, 
he was not hkely to mend their speed by mounting another 
passenger. But the vacant place is such an inviting one ! 

Petrarca. 

" Qua locus Erigonen inter Chelasque sequentes 
Panditur — " 

Boccaccio. Plenty of room, sir ! 
Petrarca. 

" — ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens 
Scorpius — " 

Boccaccio. I would not incommode him \ I would beg him 
to be quite at his ease. 
Petrarca. 

" — et coeli justa plus parte reliquit. 
Quicquid eris (nam te nee sperent Tartara regem 
Nee tibi regnandi veniet tam dira cupido, 
Quamvis Elysios miretur Grsecia campos, 
Nee repetita sequi curet Proserpina matrem)." 

Boccaccio. Was it not enough to have taken all Varro's in- 
vocation, much enlarged, without adding these verses to the 
other twenty- three ? 

Petrarca. Vainly will you pass through the later poets of 
the empire, and look for the like extravagance and bombast. 
Tell me candidly your opinion, not of the quantity but of the 
quality. 

Boccaccio. I had scarcely formed one upon them before. 
Honestly and truly, it is just such a rumbling rotundity as 



THE PENTAMERON. 5 I 

might have been blown, with much ado, if Lucan and Nero 
had joined their pipes and puffed together into the same 
bladder. I never have admired, since I was a schoolboy, the 
commencement or the conclusion of the Georgics, — an un- 
wholesome and consuming fungus at the foot of the tree, a 
withered and loose branch at the summit. 

Boccaccio. Virgil and Dante are altogether so different that, 
unless you will lend me your whole store of ingenuity, I shall 
never bring them to bear one upon the other. 

Petrarca. Frequently the points of comparison are salient 
in proportion as the angles of similitude recede, and the ab- 
sence of a quality in one man usually makes us recollect its 
presence in another ; hence the comparison is at the same time 
natural and involuntary. Few poets are so different as Homer 
and Virgil, yet no comparison has been made oftener. Ovid 
although unlike Homer, is greatly more like him than Virgil is ; 
for there is the same facility, and apparently the same negli- 
gence, in both. The great fault in the " Metamorphoses " is 
in the plan, as proposed in the argument : — 

" primaque ab origine mundi 
In Tat2i perpehmm deducere tempora carmen." 

Had he divided the more interesting of the tales, and omit- 
ted all the transformations, he would have written a greater 
number of exquisite poems than any author of Italy or Greece. 
He wants on many occasions the gravity of Virgil ; he wants 
on all the variety of cadence ; but it is a very mistaken notion 
that he either has heavier faults or more numerous. His 
natural air of levity, his unequalled and unfailing ease, have 
always made the contrary opinion prevalent. Errors and faults 
are readily supposed, in literature as in life, where there is 
much gayety ; and the appearance of ease, among those who 
never could acquire or understand it, excites a suspicion of 
negligence and faultiness. Of all the ancient Romans, Ovid 
had the finest imagination ; he likewise had the truest tact in 
judging the poetry of his contemporaries and predecessors. 
Compare his estimate with Quintilian's of the same writers, 
and this will strike you forcibly. He was the only one of his 
countrymen who could justly appreciate the labors of Lucretius. 

" Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti, 
Exitio terras quum dabit una dies." 



52 THE PENTAMERON. 

And the kindness with which he rests on all the others, shows 
a benignity of disposition which is often lamentably deficient 
in authors who write tenderly upon imaginary occasions. 

I begin to be inclined to your opinion in regard to the advan- 
tages of our Italian versification. It surely has a greater variety 
in its usual measure than the Latin, in dactyls and spondees. 
We admit several feet into ours ; the Latin, if we believe the 
grammarians, admits only two into the heroic ; and at least 
seven verses in every ten conclude with a dissyllabic word. 

Boccaccio. We are taught indeed that the final foot of an 
hexameter is always a spondee ; but our ears deny the asser- 
tion, and prove to us that it never is, any more than it is in 
the Italian. In both the one and the other the last foot is uni- 
formly a trochee in pronunciation. There is only one species 
of Latin verse which ends with a true inflexible spondee, and 
this is the scazon. Its name of the limper is but little prepos- 
sessing, yet the two most beautiful and most perfect poems of 
the language are composed in it, — the "Miser Catulle " and 
the "Sirmio." 

Petrarca. This is likewise my opinion of those two little 
golden images, which however are insufficient to raise Catullus 
on an equality with Virgil : nor would twenty such. Amplitude 
of dimensions is requisite to constitute the greatness of a poet, 
besides his symmetry of form and his richness of decoration. 
We have conversed more than once together on the defects 
and oversights of the correct and elaborate Mantuan, but never 
without the expression of our gratitude for the exquisite deUght 
he has afforded us. We may forgive him his Proteus and his 
PoUio ; but we cannot well forbear to ask him how ^neas 
came to know that Acragas y^z.% formerly the sire of high-mettled 
steeds, even if such had been the fact. But such was only 
the fact a thousand years afterward, in the reign of Gelon. 

Boccaccio. Was it theji ? Were the horses of Gelon and 
Theron and Hiero of Agrigentine or Sicilian breed? The 
country was never celebrated for a race adapted to chariots ; 
such horses were mostly brought from Thessaly, and probably 
some from Africa. I do not believe there was ever a fine one 
in Italy before the invasion of Pyrrhus. No doubt, Hannibal 
introduced many. Greece herself, I suspect, was greatly in- 
debted to the studs of Xerxes for the noblest of her prizes on 



THE PENTAMERON. 53 

the Olympic plain. In the kingdom of Naples I have observed 
more horses of high blood than in any other quarter of Italy. 
It is there that Pyrrhus and Hannibal were stationary ; and long 
after these the most warlike of men, the Normans, took posses- 
sion of the country. And the Normans would have horses 
worthy of their valor, had they unyoked them from the chariot 
of the sun. Subduers of France, of Sicily, of Cyprus, they 
made England herself accept their laws. 

Virgil, I remember, in the Georgics, has given some direc- 
tions in the choice of horses. He speaks unfavorably of the 
white ; yet painters have been fond of representing the leaders 
of armies mounted on them. And the reason is quite as good 
as the reason of a writer on husbandry (Cato or Columella) for 
choosing a house-dog of a contrary color : it being desirable 
that a general should be as conspicuous as possible, and a dog, 
guarding against thieves, as invisible. 

I love beyond measure in Virgil his kindness toward dumb 
creatures. Although he represents his Mezentius as a hater of 
the Gods, and so inhuman as to fasten dead bodies to the living, 
and violates in him the unity of character more than character 
was ever violated before, we treat as impossible all he has 
been telling us of his atrocities when we hear his allocution to 
Rhoebus. 

Petrarca. The dying hero, for hero he is transcendently 
above all the others in the ^neid, is not only the kindest 
father, not only the most passionate in his grief for Lausus, but 
likewise gives way to manly sorrows for the mute companion 
of his warfare. 

" Rhoebe diu, res si qua diu mortalibus usquam, 
Viximus." 

Here the philosophical reflection addressed to the worthy 
quadruped on the brief duration of human and equine life, is 
ill apphed. It is not the thought for the occasion, it is not the 
thought for the man. He could no more have uttered it than 
Rhoebus could have appreciated it. This is not, however, 
quite so great an absurdity as the tender apostrophe of the 
monster Proteus to the dead Eurydice. Besides, the youth of 
Lausus and the activity and strength of Mezentius, as exerted 



54 THE PENTAMERON. 

in many actions just before his fall, do not allow us to suppose 
that he who says to his horse 

" Diu viximus," 

had passed the meridian of existence. 

Boccaccio. Francesco, it is a pity you had no opportunity 
of looking into the mouth of the good horse Rhoebus ; perhaps 
his teeth had not lost all their marks. 

Petrarca. They would have been lost upon me, though 
horses' mouths to the intelligent are more trustworthy than 
many others. 

Boccaccio. I have always been of opinion that Virgil is in- 
ferior to Homer, not only in genius but in judgment, and to 
an equal degree at the very least. I shall never dare to employ 
half your suggestions in our irritable city, for fear of raising up 
two new factions, — the Virgilians and the Dantists, 

Petrarca. I wish in good truth and seriousness you could 
raise them, or anything like zeal for genius, with whomsoever 
it might abide. 

Boccaccio. You really have almost put me out of conceit 
with Virgil. 

Petrarca. I have done a great wrong then both to him and 
you. Admiration is not the pursuivant to all the steps even 
of an admirable poet ; but respect is stationary. Attend him 
where the ploughman is unyoking the sorrowful ox from his 
companion dead at the furrow; follow him up the arduous 
ascent where he springs beyond the strides of Lucretius ; and 
close the procession of his glory with the coursers and cars 
of Elis. 



THIRD DAY'S INTERVIEW. 

It being now the Lord's Day, Messer Francesco thought it 
meet that he should rise early in the morning and bestir him- 
self to hear Mass in the parish church at Certaldo. Where- 
upon he went on tiptoe, if so weighty a man could indeed go 
in such a fashion, and lifted softly the latch of Ser Giovanni's 



THE PENTAMERON. 55 

chamber-door, that he might salute him ere he departed, and 
occasion no wonder at the step he was about to take. He 
found Ser Giovanni fast asleep, with the missal wide open across 
his nose, and a pleasant smile on his genial joyous mouth. Ser 
Francesco leaned over the couch, closed his hands together, 
and looking with even more than his usual benignity, said in a 
low voice, " God bless thee, gentle soul ! the mother of purity 
and innocence protect thee ! " 

He then went into the kitchen, where he found the girl As- 
sunta, and mentioned his resolution. She informed him that 
the horse had eaten his two beans,^ and was as strong as a lion 
and as ready as a lover. Ser Francesco patted her on the 
cheek, and called her seniplicetfa I She was overjoyed at this 
honor from so great a man, the bosom-friend of her good 
master, whom she had always thought the greatest man in the 
world, not excepting Monsignore, until he told her he was only 
a dog confronted with Ser Francesco. She tripped alertly 
across the paved court into the stable, and took down the 
saddle and bridle from the farther end of the rack. But Ser 
Francesco, with his natural politeness, would not allow her to 
equip his palfrey. 

" This is not the work for maidens," said he ; " return to the 
house, good girl ! " 

She lingered a moment, then went away; but mistrusting 
the dexterity of Ser Francesco, she stopped and turned back 
again, and peeped through the half-closed door, and heard 
sundry sobs and wheezes round about the girth. Ser Fran- 
cesco's wind ill seconded his intention ; and although he had 
thrown the saddle valiantly and stoutly in its station, yet the 
girths brought him into extremity. She entered again, and, 
dissembling the reason, asked him whether he would not take 
a small beaker of the sweet white wine before he set out, and 
offered to girdle the horse while his reverence bitted and 
bridled him. Before any answer could be returned, she had 
begun; and having now satisfactorily executed her undertak- 
ing, she felt irrepressible delight and glee at being able to do 
what Ser Francesco had failed in. He was scarcely more suc- 
cessful with his allotment of the labor ; found unlooked-for in- 

1 Literally, due fave, — the expression on such occasions to signify a 
small quantity. 



$6 THE PENTAMERON. 

tricacies and complications in the machinery, wondered that 
human wit could not simplify it, and declared that the animal 
had never exhibited such restiveness before. In fact, he never 
had experienced the same grooming. At this conjuncture, a 
green cap made its appearance, bound with straw-colored 
ribbon, and surmounted with two bushy sprigs of hawthorn, of 
which the globular buds were swelling, and some bursting, 
but fewer yet open. It was young Simplizio Nardi, who some- 
times came on the Sunday morning to sweep the court-yard 
for Assunta. 

" Oh ! this time you are come just when you were wanted," 
said the girl. " Bridle, directly, Ser Francesco's horse, and 
then go away about your business." 

The youth blushed, and kissed Ser Francesco's hand, begging 
his permission. It was soon done. He then held the stirrup ; 
and Ser Francesco, with scarcely three efforts, was seated and 
erect on the saddle. The horse, however, had somewhat more 
inclination for the stable than for the expedition, and as As- 
sunta was handing to the rider his long ebony staff, bearing an 
ivory caduceus, the quadruped turned suddenly round. Sim- 
plizio called him bestiaccia ! and then, softening it, poco gar- 
bato I and proposed to Ser Francesco that he should leave the 
bastone behind, and take the crab-switch he presented to him, 
giving at the same time a sample of its efficacy, which covered 
the long grizzly hair of the worthy quadruped with a profusion 
of pink blossoms, like embroidery. The offer was declined ; 
but Assunta told Simplizio to carry it himself, and to walk 
by the side of Ser Canonico quite up to the church porch, 
having seen what a sad dangerous beast his reverence had 
under him. 

With perfect good-will, partly in the pride of obedience to 
Assunta, and partly to enjoy the renown of accompanying a 
canon of Holy Church, Simplizio did as she enjoined. 

And now the sound of village bells, in many hamlets and 
convents and churches out of sight, was indistinctly heard, and 
lost again ; and at last the five of Certaldo seemed to crow 
over the faintness of them all. The freshness of the morning 
was enough of itself to excite the spirits of youth, — a portion 
of which never fails to descend on years that are far removed 
from it, if the mind has partaken in innocent mirth while it 



THE PENTAMERON. 57 

was its season and its duty to enjoy it. Parties of young and 
old passed the canonico and his attendant with mute respect, 
bowing and bare-headed ; for that ebony staff threw its spell 
over the tongue, which the frank and hearty salutation of the 
bearer was inadequate to break. Siraplizio once or twice 
attempted to call back an intimate of the same age with him- 
self; but the utmost he could obtain was a riveritissimo, and 
a genuflection to the rider. It is reported that a heart-burning 
rose up from it in the breast of a cousin, some days after, too 
distinctly apparent in the long-drawn appellation of Gnor^ 
Simplizio. 

Ser Francesco moved gradually forward, his steed picking 
his way along the lane, and looking fixedly on the stones with 
all the sobriety of a mineralogist. He himself was well satis- 
fied with the pace, and told Simplizio to be sparing of the 
switch, unless in case of a hornet or gadfly. SimpHzio smiled, 
toward the hedge, and wondered at the condescension of so 
great a theologian and astrologer in joking with him about the 
gadflies and hornets in the beginning of April. " Ah ! there 
are men in the world who can make wit out of anything ! " said 
he to himself. 

As they approached the walls of the town, the whole country 
was pervaded by a stirring and diversified air of gladness. 
Laughter and songs and flutes and viols, inviting voices and 
complying responses, mingled with merry bells and with pro- 
cessional hymns, along the woodland paths and along the yellow 
meadows. It was really the Lord's Day, for he made his crea- 
tures happy in it, and their hearts were thankful. Even the cruel 
had ceased from cruelty ; and the rich man alone exacted from 
the animal his daily labor. Ser Francesco made this remark, 
and told his youthful guide that he had never been before 
where he could not walk to church on a Sunday ; and that 
nothing should persuade him to urge the speed of his beast, 
on the seventh day, beyond his natural and willing foot's-pace. 
He reached the gates of Certaldo more than half an hour 
before the time of service, and he found laurels suspended 
over them, and being suspended ; and many pleasant and 
beautiful faces were protruded between the ranks of gentry 
and clergy who awaited him. Little did he expect such an 

1 Contraction of signor, customary in Tuscany. 



58 THE PENTAMERON, 

attendance ; but Fra Biagio of San Vivaldo, who himself had 
offered no obsequiousness or respect, liad scattered the secret 
of his visit throughout the whole country. A young poet, the 
most celebrated in the town, approached the canonico with a 
long scroll of verses, which fell below the knee, beginning — 

" How shall we welcome our illustrious guest ? " 

To which Ser Francesco immediately replied, " Take your 
favorite maiden, lead the dance with her, and bid all your 
friends follow; you have a good half-hour for it." 

Universal applauses succeeded, the music struck up, couples 
were instantly formed. The gentry on this occasion led out 
the cittadinanza, as they usually do in the villeggiatura, — rarely 
in the carnival, and never at other times. The elder of the 
priests stood round in their sacred vestments, and looked with 
cordiality and approbation on the youths, whose hands and 
arms could indeed do much, and did it, but whose active eyes 
could rarely move upward the modester of their partners. 

While the elder of the clergy were thus gathering the fruits 
of their liberal cares and paternal exhortations, some of the 
younger looked on with a tenderer sentiment, not unmingled 
with regret. Suddenly the bells ceased ; the figure of the dance 
was broken ; all hastened into the church ; and many hands' 
that joined on the green met together at the font, and touched 
the brow reciprocally with its lustral waters in soul- devotion. 

After the service, and after a sermon a good church-hour 
in length to gratify him, enriched with compliments from all 
authors, Christian and Pagan, informing him at the conclusion 
that although he had been crowned in the Capitol he must 
die, being bom mortal, Ser Francesco rode homeward. The 
sermon seemed to have sunk deeply into him, and even into 
the horse under him, for both of them nodded, both snorted, 
and one stumbled. Simplizio was twice fain to cry, — 

" Ser Canonico ! Riverenza ! in this country if we sleep 
before dinner it does us harm. There are stones in the road, 
Ser Canonico, loose as eggs in a nest, and pretty nigh as thick 
together, huge as mountains." 

" Good lad," said Ser Francesco, rubbing his eyes, " toss 
the biggest of them out of the way, and never mind the 
rest." 



THE PENTAMERON. 59 

The horse, although he walked, shuffled almost into an amble 
as he approached the stable, and his master looked up at it 
with nearly the same contentment. Assunta had been ordered 
to wait for his return, and cried, — 

" O Ser Francesco ! you are looking at our long apricot, that 
runs the whole length of the stable and bam, covered with 
blossoms as the old white hen is with feathers. You must 
come in the summer, and eat this fine fruit with Signor Padrone. 
You cannot think how ruddy and golden and sweet and mel- 
low it is. There are peaches in all the fields, and plums and 
pears and apples, but there is not another apricot for miles 
and miles. Ser Giovanni brought the stone from Naples before 
I was born ; a lady gave it to him when she had eaten only 
half the fruit off it : but perhaps you may have seen her, for 
you have ridden as far as Rome, or beyond. Padrone looks 
often at the fruit, and eats it willingly ; and I have seen him 
turn over the stones in his plate, and choose one out from the 
rest and put it into his pocket, but never plant it." 

"Where is the youth?" inquired Ser Francesco. 

"Gone away," answered the maiden. 

" I wanted to thank him," said the canonico. 

" May I tell him so? " asked she. 

"And give him," continued he, holding a piece of silver — 

" I will give him something of my own, if he goes on and 
behaves well," said she ; " but Signor Padrone would drive him 
away forever, I am sure, if he were tempted in an evil hour to 
accept a quattrino for any service he could render the friends 
of the house." 

Ser Francesco was delighted with the graceful animation of 
this ingenuous girl, and asked her, with a little curiosity, how 
she could afford to make him a present. 

" I do not intend to make him a present," she replied ; " but 
it is better he should be rewarded by me," — she blushed and 
hesitated, — " or by Signor Padrone," she added, " than by 
your reverence. He has not done half his duty yet, — not 
half. I will teach him ; he is quite a child — four months 
younger than me." 

Ser Francesco went into the house, saying to himself at the 
doorway, " Truth, innocence, and gentle manners have not yet 
left the earth. There are sermons that never make the ears 



60 THE PENTAMERON. 

weary. I have heard but few of them, and come from church 
for this," 

Whether Simphzio had obeyed some private signal from As- 
sunta, or whether his own dehcacy had prompted him to dis- 
appear, he was now again in the stable, and the manger was 
replenished with hay. A bucket was soon after heard ascend- 
ing from the well ; and then two words, " Thanks, Simphzio." 

When Petrarca entered the chamber he found Boccaccio with 
his breviary in his hand, not looking into it, indeed, but re- 
peating a thanksgiving in an audible and impassioned tone of 
voice. Seeing Ser Francesco, he laid the book down beside 
him, and welcomed him. 

" I hope you have an appetite after your ride," said he, 
" for you have sent home a good dinner before you." 

Ser Francesco did not comprehend him, and expressed it 
not in words but in looks. 

"I am afraid you will dine sadly late to-day; noon has 
struck this half-hour, and you must wait another, I doubt. 
However, by good luck I had a couple of citrons in the house, 
intended to assuage my thirst if the fever had continued. This 
being over, by God's mercy, I will try (please God !) whether 
we two greyhounds cannot be a match for a leveret." 

" How is this? " said Ser Francesco. 

" Young Marc- Antonio Grilli, the cleverest lad in the parish 
at noosing any wild animal, is our patron of the feast. He has 
wanted for many a day to say something in the ear of Matilda 
Vercelli. Bringing up the leveret to my bedside, and opening 
the lips and cracking the knuckles, and turning the foot round 
to show the quality and quantity of the hair upon it, and to 
prove that it really and truly was a leveret and might be eaten 
without offence to my teeth, he informed me that he had left 
his mother in the yard, ready to dress it for me ; she having 
been cook to the prior. He protested he owed the crowned 
martyr a forest of leverets, boars, deer, and everything else 
within them, for having commanded the most backward girls 
to dance directly. Whereupon he darted forth at Matilda, 
saying, ' The crowned martyr orders it,' seizing both her 
hands, and swinging her round before she knew what she 
was about. He soon had an opportunity of applying a word, 
no doubt as dexterously as hand or foot ; and she said sub- 



THE PENTAMERON. 6 1 

missively, but seriously, and almost sadly, ' Marc-Antonio, now- 
all the people have seen it, they will think it.' And, after a 
pause, ' I am quite ashamed, and so should you be : are not 
you now ? ' 

" The others had run into the church. Matilda, who scarcely 
had noticed it, cried suddenly, ' O Santissima ! we are quite 
alone.' 

" ' Will you be mine ? ' cried he, enthusiastically. 

" ' Oh, they will hear you in the church,' replied she. 

" ' They shall, they shall ! ' cried he again, as loudly. 

" ' If you will only go away.' 

"'And then?' 

" ' Yes, yes, indeed.' 

" ' The Virgin hears you ; fifty saints are witnesses.* 

" * Ah ! they know you made me ; they will look kindly on 
us.' 

" He released her hand ; she ran into the church doubling 
her veil (I will answer for her) at the door, and kneeling as 
near it as she could find a place. 

" ' By Saint Peter,' said Marc- Antonio, ' if there is a leveret 
in the wood, the crowiied martyr shall dine upon it this blessed 
day.' And he bounded off, and set about his occupation. I 
inquired what induced him to designate you by such a title. 
He answered, that everybody knew you had received the 
crown of martyrdom at Rome, between the pope and anti- 
pope, and had performed many miracles, for which they had 
canonized you, and that you wanted only to die to become a 
saint." 

The leveret was now served up, cut into small pieces, and 
covered with a rich tenacious sauce, composed of sugar, citron, 
and various spices. The appetite of Ser Francesco was con- 
tagious. Never was dinner more enjoyed by two compan- 
ions, and never so much by a greater number. One glass of 
a fragrant wine, the color of honey, and unmixed with water, 
crowned the repast. Ser Francesco then went into his own 
chamber, and found on his ample mattress a cool refresh- 
ing sleep, quite sufficient to remove all the fatigues of the 
morning ; and Ser Giovanni lowered the pillow against which 
he had seated himself, and fell into his usual repose. Their 
separation was not of long continuance ; and the religious du- 



62 THE PENTAMERON. 

ties of the Sabbath having been performed, a few reflections 
on literature were no longer interdicted. 

Boccaccio. How happens it, O Francesco ! that nearly at 
the close of our lives, after all our efforts and exhortations, we 
are standing quite alone in the extensive fields of literature? 
We are only like to scorice. struck from the anvil of the gigantic 
Dante. We carry our fire along with us in our parabola, and 
behold ! it falls extinguished on the earth. 

Petrarca. Courage ! courage ! we have hardly yet lighted 
the lamp and shown the way. 

Boccaccio. You are a poet ; I am only a commentator, and 
must soothe my own failures in the success of my master. 

I cannot but think, again and again, how fruitlessly the 
bravest have striven to perpetuate the ascendency or to estab- 
lish the basis of empire, when Alighieri hath fixed a language 
for thousands of years and for myriads of men, — a language 
far richer and more beautiful than our glorious Italy ever knew 
before, in any of her regions, since the Attic and the Dorian 
contended for the prize of eloquence on her southern shores. 
Eternal honor, eternal veneration, to him who raised up our 
country from the barbarism that surrounded her ! Remember 
how short a time before him, his master Brunetto Latini wrote 
in French : prose indeed ; but whatever has enough in it for 
poetry, has enough for prose out of its shreds and selvages. 

Petrarca. Brunetto ! Brunetto ! it was not well done in 
thee. An Italian, a poet, write in French ! What human ear 
can tolerate its nasty nasalities, what homely intellect be sat- 
isfied with its bare-bone poverty? By good fortune we have 
nothing to do with it in the course of our examination. Several 
things in Dante himself you will find more easy to explain than 
to excuse. You have already given me a specimen of them, 
which I need not assist you in rendering more copious. 

Boccaccio. There are certainly some that require no httle 
circumspection. Difficult as they are to excuse, the difficulty 
lies more on the side of the clergy than the laity. 

Petrarca. I understand you. The gergo of your author 
has always a reference to the court of the Vatican. Here he 
speaks in the dark: against his private enemies he always is 
clear and explicit. 

Unless you are irresistibly pressed into it, give no more than 



THE PENTAMERON. 63 

two, or at most three, lectures on the verse which I predict 
will appear to our Florentines the cleverest in the poem, — 

" Che vel viso degli uomini legge O M O." 

Boccaccio. We were very near a new civil war about the 
interpretation of it. 

Petrarca. Foolisher questions have excited general ones. 
What, I wonder, rendered you all thus reasonable at last? 

Boccaccio. The majority, which on few occasions is so much 
in the right, agreed with me that the two eyes are signified by 
the two vowels, the nose by the centre of the consonant, and 
the temples by its exterior lines. 

Petrarca. In proceeding to explore the " Paradise " more 
minutely, I must caution you against remarking to your audi- 
ence, that, although the nose is between the eyes, the temples 
are not, exactly, — an observation which, if well established, 
might be resented as somewhat injurious to the Divinity of 
the " Commedia." 

Boccaccio. With all its flatnesses and swamps, many have 
preferred the " Paradiso " to the other two sections of the 
poem. 

Petrarca. There is as little in it of very bad poetry — or we 
may rather say, as little of what is no poetry at all — as in either, 
which are uninviting from an absolute lack of interest and allu- 
sion, from the confusedness of the ground-work, the indistinct- 
ness of the scene, and the paltriness (in great measure) of the 
agents. If we are amazed at the number of Latin verses in 
the " Inferno " and " Purgatorio," what must we be at their fer- 
tility in the " Paradiso," where they drop on us in ripe clusters 
through every glen and avenue ! We reach the conclusion of 
the sixteenth canto before we come in sight of poetry, or more 
than a glade with a gleam upon it. Here we find a description 
of Florence in her age of innocence ; but the scourge of satire 
sounds in our ears before we fix the attention. 

Boccaccio. I like the old Ghibelline best in the seventeenth, 
where he dismisses the doctors, corks up the Latin, ceases from 
psalmody, looses the arms of Calfucci and Arigucci, sets down 
Caponsacco in the market, and gives us a stave of six verses 
which repays us amply for our heaviest toils and sufferings, — 

" Tu lascierai ogni cosa diletta," etc. 



64 THE PENTAMERON. 

But he soon grows weary of tenderness and sick of sorrow, and 
returns to his habitual exercise of throwing stones and caUing 
names. 

Again we are refreshed in the twentieth. Here we come to 
the simile ; here we look up and see his lark, and are happy 
and lively as herself. Too soon the hard fingers of the master 
are round our wrists again ; we are dragged into the school, 
and are obliged to attend the divinity examination, which the 
poet undergoes from Saint Simon- Peter. He acquits himself 
pretty well, and receives a handsome compliment from the 
questioner, who, " inflamed with love," acknowledges he has 
given " a good account of the coinage, both in regard to 
weight and alloy." 

''Tell me," continues he, "have you any of it in your 
pocket?" 

" Yea," replies the scholar, " and so shining and round that 
I doubt not what mint it comes from." 

Saint Simon-Peter does not take him at his word for it, but 
tries to puzzle and pose him with several hard queries. He 
answers both warily and wittily, and grows so contented with 
his examining master, that, instead of calling him " a sergeant 
of infantry," as he did before, he now entitles him " the 
baron." 

I must consult our bishop ere I venture to comment on these 
two verses, — 

" Credo una essenza, si una e si trina 
Che soffera congiunto sitnt et este" — 

as, whatever may peradventure he within them, they are hardly 
worth the ceremony of being burned alive for, although it should 
be at the expense of the Church. 

Fetf-arca. I recommend to you the straightforward course ; 
but I believe I must halt a little, and advise you to look about 
you. If you let people see that there are so many faults in your 
author, they will reward you, not according to your merits, but 
according to its defects. On celebrated writers, when we speak 
in public, it is safer to speak magnificently than correctly. 
Therefore be not too cautious in leading your disciples and in 
telling them. Here you may step securely, here you must mind 
your footing ; for a florin will drop out of your pocket at every 
such crevice you stop to cross. 



THE PENTAMERON. 65 

Boccaccio. The room is hardly Hght enough to let me see 
whether you are smiling ; but being the most ingenuous soul 
alive, and by no means the least jocose one, I suspect it. My 
ofifice is to explain what is difificult, rather than to expatiate on 
what is beautiful or to investigate what is amiss. If those who 
invite me to read the lectures mark out the topics for me, 
nothing is easier than to keep within them. Yet with how true 
and entire a pleasure shall I point out to my fellow-citizens such 
a glorious tract of splendor as there is in the single line, — 

" Cio ch' io vedevo mi sembrava un riso 
Deir universo ! " 

With what exultation shall I toss up my gauntlet into the bal- 
cony of proud Antiquity, and cry Descend ! Contend ! 

I have frequently heard your admiration of this passage, and 
therefore I dwell on it the more delighted. Besides, we seldom 
find anything in our progress that is not apter to excite a very 
different sensation. School-divinity can never be made attrac- 
tive to the Muses ; nor will Virgil and Thomas Aquinas ever 
cordially shake hands. The unrelenting rancor against the 
popes is more tedious than unmerited ; in a poem I doubt 
whether we would not rather find it unmerited than tedious, 
for of all the sins against the spirit of poetry, this is the most 
unpardonable. Something of our indignation, and a proportion 
of our scorn, may fairly be detached from the popes and thrown 
on the pusillanimous and perfidious who suffered such excres- 
cences to shoot up, exhausting and poisoning the soil they 
sprang from. 

Petrarca. I do not wonder they make Saint Peter " redden," 
as we hear they do, but I regret that they make him stammer, 

" Quegli che usurpa in terra il luogo mio, 
II luogo mio, il luogo mio," etc. 

Alighieri was not the first Catholic who taught us that the pa- 
pacy is usurpation, nor will he be (let us earnestly hope) the 
last to inculcate so evident a doctrine. 

Boccaccio. Canonico of Parma ! Canonico of Parma ! you 
make my hair stand on end. But since nobody sees it besides 
yourself, prythee tell me how it happens that an infallible pope 
should denounce as damnable the decision of another infal- 

5 



66 THE PENTAMERON. 

lible pope, his immediate predecessor? Giovanni the twenty- 
second, whom you knew intimately, taught us that the souls of 
the just could not enjoy the sight of God until after the day 
of universal judgment ; but the doctors of theology at Paris, 
and those learned and competent clerks the kings of France 
and Naples, would not allow him to die before he had swal- 
lowed the choke- pear they could not chew. The succeeding 
pope, who called himself an ass, — in which infallibihty was less 
wounded, and neither king nor doctor carped at it (for not 
only was he one, but as truth- telUng a beast as Balaam's) , — 
condemned this error, as indeed well he might, after two kings 
had set their faces against it. But on the whole, the thing is 
ugly and perplexing. That they were both infallible we know ; 
and yet they differed ! Nay, the former differed from himself, 
and was pope all the while, — of course infallible ! Well, since 
we may not solve the riddle, let us suppose it is only a mystery 
the more, and be thankful for it. 

Petrarca. That is best. 

Boccaccio. I never was one of those who wish for ice to 
slide upon in summer. Being no theologian, I neither am nor 
desire to be sharp-sighted in articles of heresy ; but it is re- 
ported that there are among Christians some who hesitate to 
worship the Virgin. 

Petrarca. Few, let us hope. 

Boccaccio. Hard hearts ! Imagine her, in her fifteenth year, 
fondling the lovely babe whom she was destined to outlive, — 
destined to see shedding his blood and bowing his head in 
agony ! Can we ever pass her by and not say from our hearts, 
"O thou whose purity had only the stain of compassionate 
tears upon it ! blessings, blessings on thee ! " I never saw 
her image but it suspended my steps on the highway of the 
world, discoursed with me, softened and chastened me, show- 
ing me too clearly my unworthiness by the light of a reproving 
smile. 

Petrarca. Woe betide those who cut off from us any source 
of tenderness, and shut out from any of our senses the access 
to devotion ! 

Beatrice, in the place before us, changes color too, as deeply 
as ever she did on earth ; for Saint Peter, in his passion, picks 
up and flourishes some very filthy words. He does not recover 



THE PENTAMERON. 6/ 

the use of his reason on a sudden ; but after a long and bitter 
complaint that faith and innocence are only to be found in 
little children, and that the child moreover who loves and 
listens to its mother while it lisps, wishes to see her buried 
when it can speak plainly, — he informs us that this corruption 
ought to excite no wonder, since the human race must of ne- 
cessity go astray, not having any one upon earth to govern it. 

Boccaccio. Is not this strange though, from the mouth of 
one inspired ? We are taught that there never shall be want- 
ing a head to govern the Church ; could Saint Peter say that it 
was wanting? I feel my Catholicism here touched to the quick. 
However, I am resolved not to doubt ; the more difficulties I 
find, the fewer questions I raise : the saints must settle it, as 
well as they can, among themselves. 

Petrarca. They are nearer the fountain of truth than we 
are ; and I am confident Saint Paul was in the right. 

Boccaccio. I do verily believe he may have been, although 
at Rome we might be in jeopardy for saying it. Well is it for 
me that my engagement is to comment on Alighieri's " Divina 
Commedia " instead of his treatise " De Monarchia." He 
says bold things there, and sets apostles and popes together by 
the ears. That is not the worst. He would destroy what is 
and should be, and would establish what never can nor ought 
to be. 

Peti-arca. If a universal monarch could make children 
good universally, and keep them as innocent when they grow 
up as when they were in the cradle, we might wish him upon 
his throne to-morrow. But Alighieri, and those others who 
have conceived such a prodigy, seem to be unaware that what 
they would establish for the sake of unity is the very thing by 
which this unity must be demolished. For since universal 
power does not confer on its possessor universal intelligence, 
and since a greater number of the cunning could and would 
assemble round him, he must (if we suppose him like the ma- 
jority and nearly the totality of his class) appoint a greater 
proportion of such subjects to the management and control of 
his dominions. Many of them would become the rulers of 
cities and of provinces in which they have no connections or 
affinities, and in which the preservation of character is less 
desirable to them than the possession of power. The opera- 



68 THE PENTAMERON. 

tions of injustice, and the opportunities of improvement would 
be alike concealed from the monarch in the remoter parts of 
his territories, and every man of high station would exercise 
more authority than he. 

Boccaccio, Casting aside the impracticable scheme of uni- 
versal monarchy, if kings and princes there must be, even in 
the midst of civility and letters, why cannot they return to 
European customs, renouncing those Asiatic practices which 
are become enormously prevalent ? Why cannot they be con- 
tented with such power as the kings of Rome and the lucu- 
mons of Etruria were contented with ? But forsooth they are 
wiser ! and such customs are obsolete ! Of their wisdom I 
shall venture to say nothing, for nothing, I believe, is to be 
said of it ; but the customs are not obsolete in other countries, 
— they have taken deep root in the north, and exhibit the signs 
of vigor and vitality. Unhappily, the weakest men always 
think they least want help, — like the mad and the drunk. 
Princes and geese are fond of standing on one leg, and fancy 
it (no doubt) a position of gracefulness and security, until the 
cramp seizes them on a sudden : then they find how helpless 
they are, and how much better it would have been if they had 
employed all the support at their disposal. 

Petrarca. When the familiars of absolute princes taunt us, 
as they are wont to do, with the only apothegm they ever 
learned by heart, — namely, that it is better to be ruled by one 
master than by many, — I quite agree with them, unity of power 
being the principle of republicanism, while the principle of 
despotism is division and delegation. In the one system 
every man conducts his own affairs, either personally or through 
the agency of some trustworthy representative, which is essen- 
tially the same ; in the other system no man, in quality of 
citizen, has any affairs of his own to conduct, but a tutor has 
been as much set over him as over a lunatic, as little with his 
option or consent, and without any provision, as there is in 
the case of the lunatic, for returning reason. Meanwhile, the 
spirit of republics is omnipresent in them, — as active in the 
particles as in the mass, in the circumference as in the centre. 
Eternal it must be, as truth and justice are, although not 
stationary. Yet when we look on Venice and Genoa, on the 
turreted Pisa and our own fair Florence, and many smaller 



THE PENTAMERON. 69 

cities self-poised in high serenity ; when we see what edifices 
they have raised, and then glance at the wretched habitations 
of the slaves around, — the Austrians, the French, and other 
fierce restless barbarians, — difficult is it to believe that the 
beneficent God, who smiled upon these our labors, will ever 
in his indignation cast them down, a helpless prey to such 
invaders. 

Morals and happiness will always be nearest to perfection 
in small communities, where functionaries are appointed by as 
numerous a body as can be brought together of the industrious 
and intelligent, who have observed in what manner they su- 
perintend their families and converse with their equals and 
dependants. Do we find that farms are better cultivated for 
being large? Is your neighbor friendUer for being powerful? 
Is your steward honester and more attentive for having a mort- 
gage on your estate, or a claim to a joint property in your man- 
sion? Yet well-educated men are seen about the streets so 
vacant and delirious as to fancy that a country can only be 
well governed by somebody who never saw and will never see 
a twentieth part of it, or know a hundredth part of its neces- 
sities, — somebody who has no relationships in it, no connec- 
tions, no remembrances. A man without soul and sympathy 
is alone to be the governor of men ! Giovanni, our Floren- 
tines are, beyond all others, a treacherous, tricking, mercenary 
race. What in the name of heaven will become of them, if 
ever they listen to these ravings ; if ever they lose, by their 
cowardice and dissensions (the crust of salt that keeps them 
from putrescency) , their freedom? 

Boccaccio. Alas ! I dare hardly look out sometimes, lest I 
see before me the day when German and Spaniard will split 
them down the back and throw them upon the coals. Sad 
thought ! here we will have done with it. We cannot h^lp 
them : we have made the most of them, like the good tailor 
who, as Dante says, cut his coat according to his cloth. 

Petrarca. Do you intend, if they should call upon you 
again, to give them occasionally some of your strictures on 
his prose-writings? 

Boccaccio. It would not be expedient. Enough of his 
political sentiments is exhibited in various places of his poem, 
to render him unacceptable to one party, and enough of his 



/O THE PENTAMERON. 

theological, or rather his ecclesiastical, to frighten both. You 
and I were never passionately fond of the papacy, to which we 
trace in great measure the miseries of our Italy, its divisions 
and its corruptions, the substitution of cunning for fortitude, 
and of creed for conduct. Dante burst into indignation at the 
sight of this, and because the popes took away our Chris- 
tianity, he was so angry he would throw our freedom after it. 
Any thorn in the way is fit enough to toss the tattered rag on. 
A German king will do, — Austrian or Bavarian, Swabian or 
Switzer. And to humiliate us more and more, and render us 
the laughing-stock of our household, he would invest the in- 
truder with the title of Roman Emperor. What ! it is not 
enough then that he assumes it? We must invite him, for- 
sooth, to accept it at our hands ! 

Petrarca. Let the other nations of Europe be governed by 
their hereditary kings and feudal princes, — it is more accord- 
ant with those ancient habits which have not yet given way to 
the blandishment of literature and the pacific triumph of the 
arts ; but let the states of Italy be guided by their own citizens. 
May nations find out by degrees that the next evil to being 
conquered is to conquer, and that he who assists in making 
slaves gives over at last by becoming one. 

Boccaccio. Let us endure a French pope 6r any other as 
well as we can ; there is no novelty in his being a stranger. 
The Romans at all times picked up recruits from the thieves, 
gods, and priests of all nations. Dante is wrong, I suspect, in 
imagining the popes to be infidels ; and, no doubt, they would 
pay for Indulgences as honestly as they sell them, if there were 
anybody at hand to receive the money. But who in the world 
ever thought of buying the cap he was wearing on his own 
head? Popes are no such triflers. After all, an infidel pope 
(and I do not beheve there are three in a dozen) is less 
noxious than a sanguinary soldier, be his appellation what 
it may, if his power is only limited by his will. My experience 
has however taught me that where there is a great mass of 
power concentrated, it will always act with great influence on 
the secondary around it. Whether pope or emperor or native 
king occupy the most authority within the Alps, the barons 
will range themselves under his banner, apart from the citizens. 
Venice, who appears to have received by succession the politi- 



THE PENTAMERON. 7 1 

cal wisdom of republican Rome, has less political enterprise ; 
and the jealousies of her rivals will always hold them back, or 
greatly check them, from any plan suggested by her for the 
general good. 

Petj^arca. It appears to be the will of Providence that 
power and happiness shall never co-exist. Whenever a state 
becomes powerful, it becomes unjust ; and injustice leads it 
first to the ruin of others, and next and speedily to its own. 
We whose hearts are republican are dazzled by looking so long 
and so intently at the eagles and standards and golden letters, 
"S. P. Q. R." We are reluctant to admit that the most 
wretched days of ancient Rome were the days of her most 
illustrious men ; that they began amid the triumphs of Scipio, 
when the Gracchi perished, and reached the worst under the 
dictatorship of Csesar, when perished Liberty herself A milder 
and better race was gradually formed by Grecian instruction. 
Vespasian, Titus, Nerva, Trajan, the Antonines, the Gordians, 
Tacitus, Probus, in an almost unbroken series, are such men 
as never wore the diadem in other countries ; and Rome can 
show nothing comparable to them in the most renowned and 
virtuous of her earlier consuls. Humanity would be consoled 
in some degree by them if their example had sunk into the 
breasts of the governed. But ferocity is unsoftened by sen- 
suality ; and the milk of the wolf could always be traced in the 
veins of the effeminated Romans. 

Petrarca. That is true ; and they continue to this day less 
humane than any other people of Italy. The better part of 
their character has fallen off from them ; and in courage and 
perseverance they are far behind the Venetians and Ligurians. 
These last, a scanty population, were hardly to be conquered 
by Rome in the plenitude of her power, and with all her con- 
federates, — for which reason they were hated by her beyond 
all other nations. To gratify the pride and malice of Augustus, 
were written the verses — 

" Vane Ligur ! frustraque animis elate superbis, 
Nequicquam patrias tentasti lubricus artes." 

Since that time the inhabitants of Genoa and Venice have 
been enriched with the generous blood of the Lombards. This 
Uttle tribe on the Subalpine territory, and the Norman on the 



72 THE PENTAMERON. 

Apulian, demonstrate to us, by the rapidity and extension of 
their conquests, that Italy is an over-ripe fruit, ready to drop 
from the stalk under the feet of the first insect that alights 
on it. 

Boccaccio. The Germans, although as ignorant as are the 
French, are less cruel, less insolent, and less rapacious. The 
French have a separate claw for every object of appetite or 
passion, and a spring that enables them to seize it. The de- 
sires of the German are overlaid with food and extinguished 
with drink, which to others are stimulants and incentives. The 
German loves to see everything about him orderly and entire, 
however coarse and common : the nature of the Frenchman is 
to derange and destroy everything. Sometimes when he has 
done so, he will reconstruct and refit it in his own manner, slen- 
derly and fantastically ; oftener leaving it in the middle, and 
proposing to lay the foundation when he has pointed the pin- 
nacles and gilded the weathercock. 

Fet7-arca. There is no danger that the French will have a 
durable footing in this or any other country. Their levity is 
more intolerable than German pressure, their arrogance than 
German pride, their falsehood than German rudeness, and their 
vexations than German exaction. 

Boccaccio. If I must be devoured, I have' little choice 
between the bear and the panther. May we always see the 
creatures at a distance and across the grating ! The French 
will fondle us, to show us how vastly it is our interest to fondle 
them, — watching all the while their opportunity, looking mild 
and half-asleep, making a dash at last, and laying bare and 
fleshless the arm we extend to them, from shoulder-blade to 
wrist. 

Petrarca. No nation grasping at so much ever held so little, 
or lost so soon what it had inveigled. Yet France is surrounded 
by smaller and by apparently weaker states, which she never 
ceases to molest and invade. Whatever she has won and what- 
ever she has lost, has been alike won and lost by her perfidy, — 
the characteristic of the people from the earliest ages, and re- 
corded by a succession of historians, Greek and Roman. 

Boccaccio. My father spent many years among them, where 
also my education was completed ; yet whatever I have seen, 
I must acknowledge, corresponds with whatever I have read, 



THE PENTAMERON. 73 

and corroborates in my mind the testimony of tradition. Their 
ancient history is only a preface to their later. Deplorable as 
is the condition of Italy, I am more contented to share in her 
sufferings than in the frothy festivities of her frisky neighbor. 

Petrarca. So am I ; but we must never deny or dissemble 
the victories of the ancient Gauls, many traces of which are re- 
maining, — not that a nation's glory is the greener for the ashes 
it has scattered in the season of its barbarism. 

Boccaccio. The Cisalpine regions were indeed both invaded 
and occupied by them ; yet from inability to retain the ac- 
quisition, how inconsiderable a part of the population is 
Gauhsh ! Long before the time of Caesar the language was 
Latin throughout : the soldiers of Marius swept away the last 
dregs and stains on the ancient hearth. Nor is there in the 
physiognomy of the people the slightest indication of the Gaul, 
as we perceive by medals and marbles. These would surely 
preserve his features, because they can only be the memorials 
of the higher orders, which of course would have descended 
from the conquerors. They merged early and totally in the 
original mass, and the countenances in Cisalpine busts are as 
beautiful and dignified as our other Italian races. 

Petrarca. The French imagine theirs are too. 

Boccaccio. I heartily wish them the full enjoyment of their 
blessings, real or imaginary; but neither their manners nor 
their principles coincide with ours, nor can a reasonable hope 
be entertained of benefit in their aUiance. Union at home 
is all we want, and vigilance to perpetuate the better of our 
institutions. 

Petrarca. The land, O Giovanni, of your early youth, the 
land of my only love, fascinates us no longer. Italy is our 
country ; and not ours only, but every man's, wherever may 
have been his wanderings, wherever may have been his birth, 
who watches with anxiety the recovery of the Arts, and ac- 
knowledges the supremacy of Genius. Besides, it is in Italy at 
last that all our few friends are resident. Yours were left behind 
you at Paris in your adolescence, if indeed any friendship can 
exist between a Florentine and a Frenchman ; mine at Avignon 
were Italians, and older for the most part than myself. Here 
we know that we are beloved by some, and esteemed by many. 
It indeed gave me pleasure, the first morning as I lay in bed, 



74 THE PENTAMERON. 

to overhear the fondness and earnestness which a worthy priest 
was expressing in your behalf. 

Boccaccio. In mine? 

Petrarca. Yes, indeed : what wonder? 

Boccaccio. A worthy priest ? 

Pet7'arca. None else, certainly. 

Boccaccio. Heard in bed ! dreaming, dreaming — ay ? 

Petrarca. No, indeed : my eyes and ears were wide open. 

Boccaccio. The little parlor opens into your room. But 
what priest could that be ? Canonico Casini ? He only comes 
when we have a roast of thrushes, or some such small matter at 
table ; and this is not the season, — they are pairing. Plover 
eggs might tempt him hitherward. If he heard a plover he 
would not be easy, and would fain make her drop her oblation 
before she had settled her nest. 

Petrarca. It is right and proper that you should be in- 
formed who the clergyman was to whom you are under an 
obligation. 

Boccaccio. Tell me something about it, for truly I am at a loss 
to conjecture. 

Petrarca. He must unquestionably have been expressing 
a kind and ardent solicitude for your eternal welfare. The 
first words I heard on awakening were these : " Ser Giovanni, 
although the best of masters — " 

Boccaccio. Those were Assuntina's. 

Petrarca. — "may hardly be quite so holy (not being 
priest or friar) as your reverence." 

She was interrupted by the question, "What conversation 
holdeth he?" 

She answered : " He never talks of loving our neighbor 
with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength, although 
he often gives away the last loaf in the pantry." 

Boccaccio. It was she ! Why did she say that ? — the 
slut ! 

Petrarca. " He doth well," rephed the confessor. " Of 
the Church, of the brotherhood, that is, of me, what discourses 
holdeth he?" 

I thought the question an indiscreet one ; but confessors 
vary in their advances to the seat of truth. 

She proceeded to answer : " He never said anything about 



THE PENTAMERON. 75 

the power of the Church to absolve us, if we should happen 
to go astray a little in good company, like your reverence." 

Here, it is easy to perceive, is some slight ambiguity. 
Evidently she meant to say, by the seduction of " bad " com- 
pany, and to express that his reverence had asserted his power 
of absolution ; which is undeniable. 

Boccaccio. I have my version. 

Petrarca. What may yours be ? 

Boccaccio. Frate Biagio ! broad as daylight ! the whole 
frock round ! 

I would wager a flask of oil against a turnip, that he laid 
another trap for a penance. Let us see how he went on. I 
warrant, as he warmed, he left off limping in his paces, and 
bore hard upon the bridle. 

Petrarca. " Much do I fear," continued the expositor, "he 
never spoke to thee, child, about another world." 

There was a silence of some continuance. 

"Speak ! " said the confessor. 

" No, indeed, he never did, poor Padrone ! " was the slow 
and evidently reluctant avowal of the maiden ; for in the midst 
of the acknowledgment her sighs came through the crevices 
of the door; then, without any further interrogation, and 
with little delay, she added, " But he often makes this look 
like it." 

Boccaccio. And now, if he had carried a holy scourge, it 
would not have been on his shoulders that he would have 
laid it. 

Petrarca. Zeal carries men often too far afloat ; and con- 
fessors in general wish to have the sole steerage of the con- 
science. When she told him that your benignity made this 
world another heaven, he warmly and sharply answered, " It is 
only we who ought to do that." 

" Hush," said the maiden ; and I verily believe she at that 
moment set her back against the door, to prevent the sounds 
from coming through the crevices, for the rest of them seemed 
to be just over my night-cap. " Hush," said she, in the whole 
length of that softest of all articulations, "there is Ser Fran- 
cesco in the next room ; he sleeps long into the morning, but 
he is so clever a clerk he may understand you just the same. 
I doubt whether he thinks Ser Giovanni in the wrong for 



'j6 THE PENTAMERON. 

making so many people quite happy; and if he should, it 
would grieve me very much to think he blamed Ser Giovanni." 

"Who is Ser Francesco? " he asked in a low voice. 

" Ser Canonico," she answered. 

" Of what Duomo? " continued he. 

"Who knows? " was the reply; " but he is Padrone's heart's 
friend, for certain." 

" Cospetto di Bacco ! It can then be no other than Pe- 
trarca. He makes rhymes and love like the devil. Don't 
listen to him, or you are undone. Does he love you too, as 
well as Padrone?" he asked, still lowering his voice. 

" I cannot tell that matter," she answered somewhat im- 
patiently ; " but I love him." 

"To my face ! " cried he, smartly. 

"To the Santissima ! " replied she, instantaneously; "for 
have not I told your reverence he is Padrone's true heart's 
friend ! And are not you my confessor, when you come on 
purpose? " 

" True, true ! " answered he ; " but there are occasions 
when we are shocked by the confession, and wish it made less 
daringly." 

" I was bold ; but who can help loving him who loves my 
good Padrone?" said she, much more submissively. 

Boccaccio. Brave girl, for that ! 

Dog of a Frate ! They are all of a kidney, all of a kennel. 
I would dilute their meal well, and keep them low. They should 
not waddle and wallop in every hollow lane, nor loll out their 
watery tongues at every wash-pool in the parish. We shall hear, 
I trust, no more about Fra Biagio in the house while you are 
with us. Ah, were it then for life ! 

Petrarca. The man's prudence may be reasonably doubted, 
but it were uncharitable to question his sincerity. Could a 
neighbor, a religious one in particular, be indifferent to the wel-r 
fare of Boccaccio, or any belonging to him ? 

Boccaccio. I do not complain of his indifference. In- 
different ! no, not he. He might as well be, though. My 
Villetta here is my castle : it was my father's ; it was his father's. 
Cowls did not hang to dry upon the same cord with caps in 
\h.€vc podere ; they shall not in mine. The girl is an honest girl, 
Francesco, though I say it. Neither she nor any other shall be 



THE PENTAMERON. 7/ 

befooled and bamboozled under my roof. Methinks Holy 
Church might contrive some improvement upon confession. 

Petraj'ca. Hush, Giovanni ! But, it being a matter of dis- 
cipline, who knows but she might. 

Boccaccio. Discipline ! ay, ay, ay ! faith and troth, there 
are some who want it. 

Petrarca. You really terrify me. These are sad surmises. 

Boccaccio. Sad enough ! but I am keeper of my hand- 
maiden's probity. 

Petrarca. It could not be kept safer. 

Boccaccio. I wonder what the Frate would be putting into 
her head. 

Petrarca. Nothing, nothing ; be assured. 

Boccaccio. Why did he ask her all those questions ? 

Petrarca. Confessors do occasionally take circuitous ways to 
arrive at the secrets of the human heart. 

Boccaccio. And sometimes they drive at it, methinks, a whit 
too directly. He had no business to make remarks about me. 

Petrarca. Anxiety. 

Boccaccio. 'Fore God, Francesco, he shall have more of that ; 
for I will shut him out the moment I am again up and stirring, 
though he stand but a nose's length off. I have no fear about 
the girl, no suspicion of her. He might whistle to the moon on 
a frosty night, and expect as reasonably her descending. Never 
was a man so entirely at his ease as I am about that ; never, 
never ! She is adamant ; a bright sword now first unscabbarded, 
— no breath can hang about it. A seal of beryl, of chrysolite, 
of ruby, — to make impressions (all in good time and proper 
place though) and receive none ; incapable, just as they are, of 
splitting or cracking or flawing or harboring dirt. Let him 
mind that ! Such, I assure you, is that poor little wench, 
Assuntina. 

Petrarca. I am convinced that so well-behaved a young 
creature as Assunta — 

Boccaccio. Right ! Assunta is her name by baptism : we 
usually call her Assuntina, because she is slender, and scarcely 
yet full-grown, perhaps : but who can tell ? 

As for those friars, I never was a friend to impudence ; I hate 
loose suggestions. In girls' minds you will find little dust but 
what is carried there by gusts from without. They seldom want 



78 THE PENTAMERON. 

sweeping ; when they do, the broom should be taken from be- 
hind the house-door, and the master should be the sacristan. 

— Scarcely were these words uttered when Assunta was heard 
running up the stairs ; and the next moment she rapped. Being 
ordered to come in, she entered with a willow twig in her hand, 
from the middle of which willow twig (for she held the two ends 
together) hung a fish, shining with green and gold. 

"What hast there, young maiden? " said Ser Francesco. 

"A fish, Riverenza ! " answered she. " In Tuscany we call 
it tinea.'' 

Petraj'ca. I too am a little of a Tuscan. 

Assunta. Indeed ! well, you really speak very like one, but 
only more sweetly and slowly. I wonder how you can keep up 
with Signor Padrone, — he talks fast when he is in health ; and 
you have made him so. Why did not you come before ? Your 
reverence has surely been at Certaldo in time past? 

Petrarca. Yes, before thou wert born. 

Assunta. Ah, sir ! it must have been long ago then. 

Pet)'arca. Thou hast just entered upon life. 

Assunta. I am no child. 

Petrarca. What then art thou? 

Assunta. I know not ; I have lost both father and mother : 
there is a name for such as I am. 

Petrarca. And a place in heaven. 

Boccaccio. Who brought us that fish, Assunta? Hast paid 
for it ? There must be seven pounds ; I never saw the like. 

Assunta. I could hardly lift up my apron to my eyes with 
it in my hand. Luca, who brought it all the way from the 
Padule, could scarcely be entreated to eat a morsel of bread, 
or to sit down. 

Boccaccio. Give him a flask or two of our wine ; he will 
like it better than the sour puddle of the plain. 

Assunta. He is gone back. 

Boccaccio. Gone ! who is he, pray? 

Assunta. Luca, to be sure. 

Boccaccio. What Luca? 

Assunta. Dominedio ! O Riverenza, how sadly must Ser 
Giovanni, my poor Padrone, have lost his memory in this cruel 
long illness ! He cannot recollect young Luca of the Bientola, 
who married Maria. 



THE PENTAMERON. 79 

Boccaccio. I never heard of either, to the best of my 
knowledge. 

Assunta. Be pleased to mention this in your prayers to- 
night, Ser Canonico ! May Our Lady soon give him back 
his memory ! and everything else she has been pleased 
(only in play, I hope) to take away from him ! Ser Fran- 
cesco, you must have heard all over the world how Maria 
Gargarelli, who lived in the service of our paroco, somehow 
was outwitted by Satanasso. Monsignore thought the paroco 
had not done all he might have done against his wiles 
and craftiness, and sent his reverence over to the monas- 
tery in the mountains, — Laverna yonder, — to make him look 
sharp ; and there he is yet. And now does Signor Padrone 
recollect ? 

Boccaccio. Rather more distinctly. 

Assunta. Ah, me ! Rather more distinctly ! have patience, 
Signor Padrone ! I am too venturous, God help me ! But, 
Riverenza, when Maria was the scorn or the abhorrence of 
everybody else, excepting poor Luca Sabbatini, who had always 
cherished her, and excepting Signor Padrone, who had never 
seen her in his lifetime, — for Paroco Snello said he desired no 
visits from any who took liberties with Holy Church (as if 
Padrone did !), — Luca one day came to me out of breath, with 
money in his hand for our duck. Now it so happened that the 
duck, stuffed with noble chestnuts, was going to table at that 
instant. I told Signor Padrone. 

Boccaccio. Assunta, I never heard thee repeat so long and 
tiresome a story before, nor put thyself out of breath so. Come, 
we have had enough of it. 

Petrarca. She is mortified ; pray let her proceed. 

Boccaccio. As you will. 

Assunta. I told Signor Padrone how Luca was lamenting 
that Maria was seized with an imagination. 

Petrarca. No wonder then she fell into misfortune, and her 
neighbors and friends avoided her. 

Assunta. Riverenza, how can you smile? Signor Padrone, 
and you, too? You shook your head and sighed at it when 
it happened. The Demonio, who had caused all the first 
mischief, was not contented until he had given her the 
imagination. 



80 THE PENTAMERON. 

Petrarca. He could not have finished his work more 
effectually. 

Assmita. He was balked, however. Luca said, " She shall 
not die under her wrongs, please God ! " I repeated the 
words to Signor Padrone (he seems to listen, Riverenza, and 
will remember presently) , and Signor Padrone cut away one 
leg for himself, clean forgetting all the chestnuts inside, and 
said sharply, " Give the bird to Luca ; and, hark ye, bring 
back the minestra." 

Maria loved Luca with all her heart, and Luca loved Maria 
with all his ; but they both hated Paroco Snello for such ne- 
glect about the evil one. And even Monsignore, who sent for 
Luca on purpose, had some difficulty in persuading him to for- 
bear from choler and discourse ; for Luca, who never swears, 
swore bitterly that the Devil should play no such tricks again, 
nor alight on girls napping in the parsonage, Monsignore 
thought he intended to take violent possession, and to keep 
watch there himself without consent of the incumbent. " I 
will have no scandal," said Monsignore ; so there was none. 
Maria, though she did indeed, as I told your reverence, love 
her Luca dearly, yet she long refused to marry him, and cried 
very much at last on the wedding-day, and said, as she entered 
the porch, '' Luca, it is not yet too late to leave 'me." 

He would have kissed her, but her face was upon his 
shoulder. 

Pievano Locatelli married them, and gave them his blessing ; 
and going down from the altar he said before the people, as 
he stood on the last step, " Be comforted, child ! be com- 
forted ! God above knows that thy husband is honest, and 
that thou art innocent." Pievano's voice trembled, for he was 
an aged and holy man, and had walked two miles on the occa- 
sion. Pulcheria, his governante, eighty years old, carried an 
apronful of hUes to bestrew the altar; and partly from the 
lilies, and partly from the blessed angels, who although invisi- 
ble were present, the church was filled with fragrance. Many 
who heretofore had been frightened at hearing the mention of 
Maria's name, ventured now to walk up toward her ; and some 
gave her needles, and some offered skeins of thread, and some 
ran home again for pots of honey. 

Boccaccio. And why didst not thou take her some trifle? 



THE PENTAMERON. 8 I 

Assunta. I had none. 

Boccaccio. Surely there are ahvays such about the premises. 

Assunta. Not mine to give away. 

Boccaccio. So then at thy hands, Assunta, she went off not 
overladen ! Ne'er a bone-bodkin out of thy bravery, ay ? 

Assunta. I ran out knitting, with the woodbine and syringa 
in the basket for the parlor. I made the basket — I and — 
but myself chiefly, for boys are loiterers. 

Boccaccio. Well, well, — why not bestow the basket, together 
with its rich contents ? 

Assunta. I am ashamed to say it — I covered my half- 
stocking with them as quickly as I could, and ran after her 
and presented it. Not knowing what was under the flowers, 
and never minding the liberty I had taken being a stranger to 
her, she accepted it as graciously as possible, and bade me be 
happy. 

Petrarca. I hope you have always kept her command. 

Assunta. Nobody is ever unhappy here excepting Fra Bia- 
gio, who frets sometimes ; but that may be the walk, or he 
may fancy Ser Giovanni to be worse than he really is. 

— Having now performed her mission and concluded her 
narrative, she bowed and said, " Excuse me, Riverenza ! ex- 
cuse me, Signor Padrone ! my arm aches with this great fish." 
Then bowing again, and moving her eyes modestly toward 
each, she added, " with permission ! " and left the chamber. 

"About the Sposina," after a pause, began Ser Francesco, 
"about the Sposina, — I do not see the matter clearly." 

"You have studied too much to see all things clearly," 
answered Ser Giovanni ; " you see only the greatest. In fine, 
the Devil, on this count, is acquitted by acclamation ; and the 
Paroco Snello eats lettuce and chiccory up yonder at Laverna. 
He has mendicant friars for his society every day, and snails, 
as pure as water can wash and boil them, for his repast on 
festivals. Under this discipline, if they keep it up, surely one 
devil out of legion will depart from him." 



82 THE PENTAMERON. 



FOURTH DAY'S INTERVIEW. 

Petrarca. Do not throw aside your " Paradiso " for me. 
Have you been reading it again so early? 

Boccaccio, Looking into it here and there. I had spare 
time before me. 

Petrarca. You have coasted the whole poem, and your 
boat's bottom now touches ground. But tell me what you 
think of Beatrice. 

Boccaccio. I think her in general more of the seraphic 
doctor than of the seraph. It is well she retained her beauty 
where she was, or she would scarcely be tolerable now and 
then. And yet, in other parts, we forget the captiousness in 
which Theology takes delight, and feel our bosoms refreshed 
by the perfect presence of the youthful and innocent Bice. 

There is something so sweetly sanctifying in pure love ! 

Petrarca. 

" Pure love ? there is no other, nor shall be, 
Till the worse angels hurl the better down, 
And heaven lie under hell ; if God is oiie 
And pure, so surely love is pure and one." 

Boccaccio. You understand it better than I do : you must 
have your own way. 

Above all, I have been admiring the melody of the cadence 
in this portion of the " Divina Commedia." Some of the stan- 
zas leave us nothing to desire in facility and elegance. Alighieri 
grows harmonious as he grows humane, and does not, like Or- 
pheus, play the better with the beasts about him. 

Petrarca. It is in paradise that we might expect his tones 
to be tried and modulated. 

Boccaccio. None of the imitative arts should repose on 
writhings and distortions. Tragedy herself, unless she- lead 
from Terror to Pity, has lost her way. 

Petraira. What then must be thought of a long and 
crowded work, whence Pity is violently excluded, and where 
Hatred is the first personage we meet, and almost the last we 
part from? 



THE PENTAMERON. 8^ 

Boccaccio. Happily the poet has given us here a few 
breezes of the morning, a few glimpses of the stars, a few 
similes of objects to which we have been accustomed among 
the amusements or occupations of the country. Some of them 
would be less admired in a meaner author, and are welcome 
here chiefly as a variety and relief to the mind, after a long 
continuance in a painful posture. Have you not frequently 
been pleased with a short quotation of verses in themselves but 
indifferent, from finding them in some tedious dissertation, — 
and especially if they carry you forth a little into the open air ? 

Petrarca. I am not quite certain whether if the verses 
were indifferent, I should willingly exchange the prose for 
them, bad prose being less wearisome than bad poetry, — so 
much less, indeed, that the advantage of the exchange might 
fail to balance the account. 

Boccaccio. Let me try whether I cannot give you an ex- 
ample of such effect, having already given you the tedious 
dissertation. 

Petrarca. Do your worst. 

Boccaccio. Not that neither, but bad enough. 

THE pilgrim's SHELL. 

Under a tuft of eglantine, at noon, 
I saw a pilgrim loosen his broad shell 
To catch the water off a stony tongue : 
Medusa's it might be, or Pan's, erewhile. 
For the huge head was shapeless, eaten out 
By time and tempest here, and here embossed 
With clasping tangles of dark maidenhair 

" How happy is thy thirst ! how soon assuaged ! 
How sweet that coldest water this hot day ! " 
Whispered my thoughts ; not having yet observed 
His shell so shallow and so chipped around. 
Tall though he was, he held it higher, to meet 
The sparkler at its outset : with fresh leap, 
Vigorous as one just free upon the world, 
Impetuous too as one first checked, with stamp 
Heavy as ten such sparklers might be deemed, 
Rushed it amain, from cavity and rim 
And rim's divergent channels, and dropped thick 
(Issuing at wrist and elbow) on the grass. 
The pilgrim shook his head, and fixing up 
His scallop, 

"There is something yet," said he. 
" Too scanty in this world for my desires ! " 



84 THE PENTAMERON. 

Petrarca. O Giovanni ! these are better thoughts and op- 
portuner than such lonely places formerly supplied us with. 
The whispers of rose-bushes were not always so innocent : 
under the budding and under the full-blown we sometimes find 
other images ; sometimes the pure fountain failed in bringing 
purity to the heart. 

" Unholy fire sprang up in fields and woods ; 
The air that fanned it came from solitudes." 

If our desires are worthy ones and accomplished, we rejoice 
in after time ; if unworthy and unsuccessful, we rejoice no less 
at their discomfiture and miscarriage. We cannot have all we 
wish for. Nothing is said oftener, nothing earlier, nothing 
later : it begins in the arms with the chidings of the nurse ; it 
will terminate with the milder voice of the physician at the 
death-bed. But although everybody has heard and must have 
said it, yet nobody seems to have said or considered that it is 
much, very much, to be able to form and project our wishes ; 
that in the voyage we take to compass and turn them to ac- 
count, we breathe freely and hopefully ; and that it is chiefly in 
the stagnation of port we are in danger of disappointment and 
disease. 

Boccaccio. The young man who resolves to (ionquer his love 
is only half in earnest, or has already half conquered it. But 
fields and woods have no dangers now for us. I may be alone 
until doomsday, and loose thoughts will be at fault if they try 
to scent me. 

Petrarca. When the rest of our smiles have left us, we may 
smile at our immunities. There are indeed, for nearly all, 

" Rocks on the shore wherefrom we launch on life, 
Before our final harbor rocks again, 
And (narrow sun-paced plains sailed swiftly by) 
Eddies and breakers all the space between." 

Yet Nature preserves her sedater charms for us both ; and I 
doubt whether we do not enjoy them the more by exemption 
firom solicitations and distractions. We are not old while we 
can hear and enjoy, as much as ever, 

" The lonely bird, the bird of even-song, 
When, catching one far call, he leaps elate, 
In his full fondness drowns it, and again 
The shrill, shrill glee through Serravalle rings." 



THE PENTAMERON. 85 

Boccaccio. The nightingale is a lively bird to the young 
and joyous, a melancholy one to the declining and pensive. 
He has notes for every ear, he has feeUngs for every bosom ; 
and he exercises over gentle souls a wider and more welcome 
dominion than any other creature. If I must not offer you my 
thanks for bringing to me such associations as the bedside of 
sickness is rarely in readiness to supply ; if I must not declare 
to you how pleasant and well-placed are your reflections on our 
condition, — I may venture to remark on the nightingale, that 
our Italy is the only country where this bird is killed for the 
market. In no other is the race of avarice and gluttony so 
hard run. What a triumph for a Florentine to hold under his 
fork the most delightful being in all animated nature, — the 
being to which every poet, or nearly every one, dedicates the 
first fruits of his labors ! A cannibal who devours his enemy 
through intolerable hunger, or, what he holds as the measure of 
justice and of righteousness, revenge, may be viewed with less 
abhorrence than the heartless gormandizer who casts upon his 
loaded stomach the little breast that has poured delight on 
thousands. 

Petrarca. The English, I remember Ser Geoffreddo ^ 
telling us, never kill singing-birds nor swallows. 

Boccaccio. Music and hospitality are sweet and sacred 
things with them ; and well may they value their few warm 
days, out of which, if the produce is not wine and oil, they 
gather song and gamer sensibility. 

Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo felt more pleasure in the gen- 
erosity and humanity of his countrymen than in the victories 
they had recently won with incredibly smaller numbers over 
their boastful enemy. 

Boccaccio, I know not of what nation I could name so 
amusing a companion as Ser Geoffreddo. The Englishman is 
rather an island than an islander; bluff, stormy, rude, abrupt, 
repulsive, inaccessible. We must not, however, hold back or 
dissemble the learning and wisdom and courtesy of the better. 
While France was without one single man above a dwarf in 
literature, and we in Italy had only a small sprinkling of it, 
Richard de Bury was sent ambassador to Rome by King 
Edward. So great was his learning, that he composed two 
1 Chaucer. 



86 THE PENTAMERON. 

grammars, — one Greek, one Hebrew, neither of which labors 
had been attempted by the most industrious and erudite of 
those who spoke the languages ; he likewise formed so com- 
plete a library as belongs only to the Byzantine emperors. 
This prelate came into Italy attended by Ser Geoffreddo, in 
whose company we spent, as you remember, two charming 
evenings at Arezzo. 

Petra7'ca. What wonderful things his countrymen have 
been achieving in this century ! 

Boccaccio. And how curious it is to trace them up into their 
Norwegian coves and creeks three or four centuries back ! 

Petrarca. Do you think it possible that Norway, which 
never could maintain sixty thousand ^ male adults, was capable 
of sending from her native population a sufficient force of war- 
riors to conquer the best province of France and the whole of 
England ? And you must deduct from these sixty thousand 
the aged, the artisans, the cultivators, and the clergy, together 
with all the dependents of the Church, which numbers united, 
we may believe, amounted to above one half, 

Boccaccio. That she could embody such an army from her 
own very scanty and scattered population ? No, indeed ; but if 
you recollect that a vast quantity of British had been ejected by 
incursions of Picts, and that also there had been on the borders 
a general insurrection against the Romans, and against those 
of half-blood (which is always the case in a rebellion of the 
aboriginals) ; and if you beheve as I do, that the ejected 
Romans, of the coast at least, became pirates, and were useful 
to the Scandinavians by introducing what was needful of their 
arts and salable of their plunder, taking in exchange their iron 
and timber, — you may readily admit as a probability, that, by 
the display of spoils and the spirit of enterprise, they encour- 
aged, headed, and carried into effect the invasion of France, 
and subsequently of England. The English gentlemen of 
Norman descent have neither blue eyes in general, nor fair 
complexions, differing in physiognomy altogether both from 
the Belgic race and the Norwegian. Besides, they are remark- 
able for a sedate and somewhat repulsive pride, very different 

1 With the advantages of her fisheries, which did not exist in the age 
of Petrarca, and of her agriculture, which probably is quintupled since, 
Norway does not contain at present the double of the number. 



THE PENTAMERON. 87 

from the effervescent froth of the one and the sturdy simplicity 
of the other. Ser Geoffreddo is not only the greatest genius, 
but likewise the most amiable of his nation. He gave his 
thoughts and took yours with equal freedom. His country- 
men, if they give you any, throw them at your head ; and if 
they receive any, cast them under their feet before you. 
Courtesy is neither a quality of native growth, nor commu- 
nicable to them. Their rivals, the French, are the best imi- 
tators in the world ; the English the worst, particularly under 
the instruction of the Graces. They have many virtues, no 
doubt ; but they reserve them for the benefit of their families 
or of their enemies, and they seldom take the trouble to 
unpack them in their short intercourse abroad. 

Petrarca. Ser Geoffreddo, I well remember, was no less re- 
markable for courtesy than for cordiality. 

Boccaccio. He was really as attentive and polite toward us 
as if he had made us prisoners. It is on that occasion the Eng- 
lish are most unlike their antagonists and themselves. What 
an evil must they think it to be vanquished, when, struggling 
with their bashfulness and taciturnity, they become so solicitous 
and inventive in raising the spirits of the fallen ! The French- 
man is ready to truss you on his rapier unless you acknowledge 
the perfection of his humanity, and to spit in your face if you 
doubt for a moment the delicacy of his politeness. The English- 
man is almost angry if you mention either of these as belonging 
to him, and turns away from you that he may not hear it. 

Petrarca, Let us felicitate ourselves that we rarely are forced 
to witness his self-affliction. 

Boccaccio. In palaces, and especially the pontifical, it is 
likely you saw the very worst of them ; indeed, there are few in 
any other country of such easy, graceful, unaffected manners as 
our Italians. We are warmer at the extremities than at the 
heart : sunless nations have central fires. The Englishman is 
more gratified when you enable him to show you a fresh kind- 
ness than when you remind him of a past one ; and he forgets 
what he has conferred as readily as we forget what we have re- 
ceived. In our civility, in our good nature, in our temperance, 
in our frugality, none excel us ; and greatly are we in advance 
of other men in the arts, in the sciences, in the culture, in the 
application, and in the power of intellect. Our faculties are 



88 THE PENTAMERON. 

perfect, with the sole exception of memory ; and our memory is 
only deficient in its retentiveness of obligation. 

Pet7-arca. Better had it failed in almost all its other func- 
tions. Yet if our countrymen presented any flagrant instances 
of ingratitude, Alighieri would have set apart a bolga for their 
reception. 

Boccaccio. When I correct and republish my " Commen- 
tary," I must be as careful to gratify as my author was to affront 
them. I know, from the nature of the Florentines and of the 
Italians in general, that in calling on me to produce one, they 
would rather I should praise indiscriminately than parsimonious- 
ly ; and respect is due to them for repairing, by all the means 
in their power, the injustice their fathers committed, — for en- 
during in humility his resentment, and for investing him with 
public honors as they would some deity who had smitten them. 
Respect is due to them, and I will offer it, for placing their 
greatness on so firm a plinth, for deriving their pride from so 
wholesome a source, and for declaring to the world that the 
founder of a city is less than her poet and instructor. 

Fetrarca. In the precincts of those lofty monuments, those 
towers and temples, which have sprung up amid her factions, 
the name of Dante is heard at last, and heard with such rever- 
ence as only the angels or the saints inspire. 

Boccaccio. There are towns so barbarous that they must be 
informed by strangers of their own great man, when they happen 
to have produced one, and would then detract from his merits 
that they might not exhibit their awkwardness in doing him 
honor, or their shame in withholding it. There are such ; but 
not in Italy. I have seen youths standing and looking with 
seriousness, and indeed with somewhat of veneration, on the 
broad and low stone bench to the south of the cathedral, where 
Dante sat to enjoy the fresh air in summer evenings, and where 
Giotto, in conversation with him, watched the scaffolding rise 
higher and higher up his gracefullest of towers. It was truly a 
bold action when a youngster pushed another down on the 
poet's seat : the surprised one blushed and struggled, as those 
do who unwittingly have been drawn into a penalty (not light- 
ened by laughter) for having sitten in the imperial or the papal 
chair. 

Petrarca. These are good signs, and never fallacious. In 



THE PENTAMERON. 89 

the presence of such young persons we ought to be very cautious 
how we censure a man of genius. One expression of irreverence 
may eradicate what demands the most attentive culture, may 
wither the first love for the fair and noble, and may shake the 
confidence of those who are about to give the hand to a guidance 
less liable to error. We have ever been grateful to the Deity 
for saving us from among the millions swept away by the pesti- 
lence, which depopulated the cities of Italy and ravaged the 
whole of Europe : let us be equally grateful for an exemption as 
providential and as rare in the world of letters, — an exemption 
from that Plica Polonica of invidiousness, which infests the 
squander of poetical heads, and has not always spared those 
which ought to have been cleanlier. 

Boccaccio. Critics are indignant if we are silent, and petulant 
if we complain. You and I are so kindly and considerate in 
regard to them, that we rather pat their petulance than prick up 
their indignation. Marsyas, while Apollo was flaying him leisure- 
ly and dexterously with all the calmness of a god, shortened his 
upper lip prodigiously, and showed how royal teeth are fastened 
in their gums ; his eyes grew blood-shot, and expanded to the 
size of rock- melons, though naturally, in length and breadth as 
well as color, they more resembled a well-ripened bean-pod ; 
and there issued from his smoking breast, and shook the leaves 
above it, a rapid irregular rush of yells and bowlings. Remarking 
so material a change in his countenance and manners, a satyr, 
who was much his friend and deeply interested in his punish- 
ment, said calmly, " IMarsyas ! Marsyas ! is it thou who criest 
out so unworthily ? If thou couldst only look down from that 
pleasant, smooth, shady beech-tree, thou wouldst have the satis- 
faction of seeing that thy skin is more than half drawn off thee ; 
it is hardly worth while to make a bustle about it now." 

Fefrarca. Every Marsyas hath his consoling satyr. Probably 
when yours was flayed he was found out to be a good musician, 
by those who recommended the flaying and celebrated the 
flayer. Among authors, none hath so many friends as he who 
is just now dead, and had the most enemies last week. Those 
who were then his adversaries are now sincerely his admirers — 
for moving out of the way, and leaving one name less in the 
lottery. And yet, poor souls ! the prize will never fall to them. 
There is something sweet and generous in the tone of praise. 



90 THE PENTAMERON. 

which captivates an ingenuous mind whatever maybe the subject 
of it ; while propensity to censure not only excites suspicion of 
malevolence, but reminds the hearer of what he cannot dis- 
entangle from his earliest ideas of vulgarity. There being no 
pleasure in thinking ill, it is wonderful there should be any in 
speaking ill. You, my friend, can find none in it ; but every 
step you are about to take in the revisal of your Lectures will 
require much caution. Aware you must be that there are many 
more defects in our author than we have touched or glanced at : 
principally, the loose and shallow foundation of so vast a struc- 
ture ; its unconnectedness ; its want of manners, of passion, of 
action consistently and uninterruptedly at work toward a distinct 
and worthy purpose ; and lastly (although less importantly as 
regards the poetical character) that splenetic temper, which 
seems to grudge brightness to the flames of hell, to delight in 
deepening its gloom, in multiplying its miseries, in accum- 
ulating weight upon depression, and building labyrinths about 
perplexity. 

Boccaccio. Yet, O Francesco ! when I remem.ber what 
Dante had suffered and was suffering from the mahce and ob- 
duracy of his enemies ; when I feel (and how I do feel it !) 
that you also have been following up his glory through the 
same paths of exile, — I can rest only on what is great in 
him, and the exposure of a fault appears to me almost an 
inhumanity. 

The first time I ever walked to his villa on the Mugnone, I 
felt a vehement desire to enter it ; and yet a certain awe came 
upon me, as about to take an unceremonious and an unlawful 
advantage of his absence. While I was hesitating, its inhabitant 
opened the gate, saluted and invited me. My desire vanished 
at once j and although the civility far exceeded what a stranger 
as I was (and so young a stranger too) could expect, or what 
probably the more illustrious owner would have vouchsafed, 
the place itself and the disparity of its occupier made me shrink 
from it in sadness, and stand before him almost silent. I be- 
lieve I should do the same at the present day. 

Petrarca. With such feelings, which are ours in common, 
there is little danger that we should be unjust toward him ; and 
if ever our opinions come before the public, we may disregard 
the petulance and aspersions of those whom Nature never con- 



THE PENTAMERON. 9 1 

stituted our judges, as she did us of Dante. It is our duty to 
speak with freedom ; it is theirs to listen with respect. 

Boccaccio. History would come much into the criticism, 
and would perform the most interesting part in it. But I 
clearly see how unsafe it is to meddle with the affairs of fami- 
nes ; and every family in Florence is a portion of the govern- 
ment, or has been lately. Every one preserves the annals of 
the Republic, — the facts being nearly the same, the inferences 
widely diverging, the motives utterly dissimilar. A strict ex- 
amination of Dante would involve the bravest and most in- 
telligent ; and the court of Rome, with its royal agents, would 
persecute them as conspirators against religion, against morals, 
against the peace, the order, the existence of society. When 
studious and quiet men get into power, they fancy they cannot 
show too much activity, and very soon prove, by exerting it, 
that they can show too little discretion. The military, the 
knigMy, the baronial, are spurred on to join in the chase ; but 
the fleshers have other names and other instincts. 

Petrarca. Posterity will regret that many of those allusions 
to persons and events which we now possess in the pages of 
Dante, have not reached her. Among the ancients there are 
few poets who more abound in them than Horace does, and 
yet we feel certain that there are many which are lost to us. 

Boccaccio. I wonder you did not mention him before. 
Perhaps he is no favorite with you. 

Petrarca. Why cannot we be delighted with an author, and 
even feel a predilection for him, without a dislike of others? 
An admiration of Catullus or Virgil, of TibuUus or Ovid, is 
never to be heightened by a discharge of bile on Horace. 

Boccaccio. The eyes of critics, whether in commending or 
carping, are both on one side, like a turbot's. 

Petrarca. There are some men who delight in heating 
themselves with wine, and others with headstrong frowardness. 
These are resolved to agitate the puddle of their blood by 
running into parties, literary or political, and espouse a cham- 
pion's cause with such ardor that they run against everything 
in their way. Perhaps they never knew or saw the person, or 
understood his merits. What matter? No sooner was I about 
to be crowned than it was predicted by these astrologers that 
Protonatory Nerucci and Cavallerizzo Vuotasacchetti, — two 



92 THE PENTAMERON. 

lampooners, whose hands latterly had been kept from their 
occupation by drawing gold-embroidered gloves on them, — 
would be rife in the mouths of men after my name had fallen 
into oblivion. 

Boccaccio. I never heard of them before. 

Petrarca. So much the better for them, and none the worse 
for you. Vuotasacchetti had been convicted of filching in his 
youth ; and Nerucci was so expert a logician, and so rigidly eco- 
nomical a moralist, that he never had occasion for veracity. 

Boccaccio. The upholders of such gentry are like little girls 
with their dolls, — they must clothe them, although they strip 
every other doll in the nursery. It is reported that our Giotto, — 
a great mechanician as well as architect and painter, — invented 
a certain instrument by which he could contract the dimensions 
of any head laid before him. But these gentlemen, it appears, 
have improved upon it, and not only can contract one, but 
enlarge another. 

Petrarca. He could perform his undertaking with admirable 
correctness and precision : can they theirs ? 

Boccaccio. I never heard they could ; but well enough for 
their customers and their consciences. 

Petrarca. I see, then, no great accuracy is required. 

Boccaccio. If they heard you, they would think you very 
dull. 

Petrarca. They have always thought me so, and if they 
change their opinion I shall begin to think so myself 

Boccaccio. They have placed themselves just where, if we 
were mischievous, we might desire to see them. We have no 
power to make them false and malicious, yet they become so 
the moment they see or hear of us, and thus sink lower than 
our force could ever thrust them. Pigs, it is said, driven into 
a pool beyond their depth, cut their throats by awkward at- 
tempts at swimming. We could hardly wish them worse luck, 
although each had a devil in him. Come, let us away ; we 
shall find a purer stream and pleasanter company on the 
Sabine farm. 

Petrarca. We may indeed think the first ode of little value, 
the second of none, until we come to the sixth stanza. 

Boccaccio. Bad as are the first and second, they are better 
than that wretched one, sounded so lugubriously in our ears at 



THE PENTAMERON. 93 

school as the masterpiece of the pathetic, — I mean the ode 
addressed to Virgil on the death of Quinctilius Varus. 

" Praecipe lugubres 
Cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater 
Vocem cum cithara dedit." 

Did he want any one to help him to cry? What man im- 
mersed in grief cares a quattrino about Melpomene, or her 
father's fairing of an artificial cuckoo and a gilt guitar? What 
man, on such an occasion, is at leisure to amuse himself with 
the little plaster images of Pudor and Fides, of Justitia and 
Veritas, or disposed to make a comparison of Virgil and Or- 
pheus ? But if Horace had written a thousand-fold as much 
trash, we are never to forget that he also wrote 

" Ccelo tonantem, etc," — 

in competition with which ode, the finest in the Greek language 
itself has, to my ear, too many low notes, and somewhat of a 
wooden sound. And give me " Vixi puellis," and give me 
" Quis multa gracilis," and as many more as you please; for 
there are charms in nearly all of them. It now occurs to me 
that what is written, or interpolated, 

" Acer et Mauri peditis cruentum 
Vultus in hostem," 

should be manci, — a foot soldier mutilated, but looking with 
indignant courage at the trooper who inflicted the wound. The 
Mauritanians were celebrated only for their cavalry. In return 
for my suggestion, pray tell me what is the meaning of 

" Obliquo laborat 
Lympha fugax trepidare rivo." 

Petrarca, The moment I learn it you shall have it. Laborat 
trepidare! lympha rivo ! fugax too ! Fugacity is not the action 
for hard work, or labor. 

Boccaccio. Since you cannot help me out, I must give up 
the conjecture, it seems, while it has cost me only half a cen- 
tury. Perhaps it may be curiosafelicitas. 

Petrarca. There again ! Was there ever such an unhappy 
(not to say absurd) expression ! And this from the man who 
wrote the most beautiful sentence in all latinity. 



94 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. What is that? 

Petrarca. I am ashamed of repeating it, although in itself 
it is innocent. The words are, 

" Gratias ago languori tuo, quo diutius sub 
umbra voluptatis lusimus." 

Boccaccio. Tear out this from the volume ; the rest, both 
prose and poetry, may be thrown away. In the " Dinner of 
Nasidienus," I remember the expression nosse laboro ; " I am 
anxious to know " : this expedites the solution but little. In 
the same piece there is another odd expression, — 

" Turn in lecto quoque videres 
Stridere secreta divisos aure siisurrosP 

Petrarca. I doubt Horace's felicity in the choice of words, 
being quite unable to discover it, and finding more evidences 
of the contrary than in any contemporary or preceding poet ; 
but I do not doubt his infelicity in his transpositions of them, 
in which certainly he is more remarkable than whatsoever 
writer of antiquity. How simple, in comparison, are Catullus ^ 
and Lucretius in the structure of their sentences ! But the most 
simple and natural of all are Ovid and Tibullus. Your main 
difficulty lies in another road ; it consists not in making expla- 
nations, but in avoiding them. Some scholars will assert that 
everything I have written in my sonnets is allegory or allusion ; 
others will deny that anything is ; and similarly of Dante. It 
was known throughout Italy that he was the lover of Beatrice 
Porticari. He has celebrated her in many compositions, — in 
prose and poetry, in Latin and Italian. Hence it became the 
safer for him afterward to introduce her as an allegorical per- 
sonage, in opposition to the Meretrice ; under which appella- 
tion he (and I subsequently) signified the papacy. Our great 
poet wandered among the marvels of the Apocalypse, and fixed 
his eyes the most attentively on the words, 

" Veni, et ostendam tibi sponsam, uxorem Agni." 

He, as you know, wrote a commentary on his " Commedia " at 
the close of his Treatise " De Monarchia." But he chiefly 
aims at showing the duties of pope and emperor, and explain- 

1 Except " Non ita me divi vera gemunt juerint." 



THE PENTAMERON, 95 

ing such parts of the poem as manifestly relate to them. The 
Patarini accused the pope of despoiling and defiling the Church ; 
the Ghibellines accused him of defrauding and rebelling against 
the Emperor : Dante enlists both under his flaming banner, and 
exhibits the Meretrice stealing from Beatrice both the divim 
and the august chariot ; the Church and Empire. Grave critics 
will protest their inabihty to follow you through such darkness, 
saying you are not worth the trouble, and they must give you 
up. If Laura and Fiametta were allegorical, they could inspire 
no tenderness in our readers, and little interest. But, alas ! 
these are no longer the days to dwell on them. 

Let human art exert her utmost force, 
Pleasure can rise no higher than its source ; 
And there it ever stagnates where the ground 
Beneath it, O Giovanni ! is unsound. 

Boccaccio. You have given me a noble quaternion ; for 
which I can only offer you such a string of beads as I am used 
to carry about with me. Memory, they say, is the mother of 
the Muses ; this is her gift, not theirs. 

DEPARTURE FROM FIAMETTA. 

When go I must, as well she knew, 

And neither yet could say adieu, 

Sudden was my Fiametta's fear 

To let me see or feel a tear. 

It could but melt my heart away, 

Nor add one moment to my stay. 

But it was ripe and would be shed : 

So from her cheek upon my head 

It, falling on the neck behind, 

Hung on the hair she oft had twined. 

Thus thought she, and her arm's soft strain 

Clasped it, and down it fell again. 

Come, come ! bear your disappointment, and forgive my cheat- 
ing you in the exchange ! Ah, Francesco, Francesco ! well 
may you sigh, and I too, seeing we can do little now but 
make verses and doze, and want little but medicine and 
Masses, while Era Biagio is merry as a lark, and half master 
of the house. Do not look so grave upon me for remembering 
so well another state of existence. He who forgets his love 
may still more easily forget his friendships. I am weak, I 



96 THE PENTAMERON. 

confess it, in yielding my thoughts to what returns no more ; 
but you alone know my weakness. 

Petrarca. We have loved/ and so fondly as we believe 
none other ever did ; and yet although it was in youth, Gio- 
vanni, it was not in the earliest white dawn, when we almost 
shrink from its freshness, when everything is pure and quiet, 
when little of earth is seen, and much of heaven. It was not 
so with us : it was with Dante. The little virgin Beatrice 
Porticari breathed all her purity into his boyish heart, and 
inhaled it back again ; and if war and disaster, anger and dis- 
dain, seized upon it in her absence, they never could divert its 
course nor impede its destination. Happy the man who 
carries love with him in his opening day ! he never loses its 
freshness in the meridian of life, nor its happier influence in 
the later hour. If Dante enthroned his Beatrice in the highest 
heaven, it was Beatrice who conducted him thither. Love 
preceding passion insures, sanctifies, and I would say survives 
it, were it not rather an absorption and transfiguration into its 
own most perfect purity and holiness. 

Boccaccio. Up ! up ! look into that chest of letters, out of 
which I took several of yours to run over yesterday morning. 
All those of a friend whom we have lost, to say nothing of a 
tenderer affection, touch us sensibly, be the 'subject what it 
may. When in taking them out to read again we happen to 
come upon him in some pleasant mood, it is then the dead 
man's hand is at the heart. Opening the same paper long 
afterward, can we wonder if a tear has raised its little island 
in it? Leave me the memory of all my friends, even of the 
ungrateful ! They must remind me of some kind feeling, 
and perhaps of theirs ; and for that very reason they deserve 
another. It was not my fault if they turned out less worthy 
than I hoped and fancied them. Yet half the world complains 
of ingratitude, and the remaining half of envy. Of the one 
I have already told you my opinion, and heard yours ; and the 
other we may surely bear with quite as much equanimity. 

1 The tender and virtuous Shenstone, in writing the most beautiful of 
epitaphs, was unaware how near he stood to Petrarca, — " Heu quanto 
minus est cum aliis versari quam tui meminisse." 

" Pur mi consola che morir per lei 
Meglio b che gioir d'altra." 



THE PENTAMERON. 9/ 

For rarely are we envied, until we are so prosperous that envy 
is rather a famihar in our train than an enemy who waylays us. 
If we saw nothing of such followers and outriders, and no 
scabbard with our initials upon it, we might begin to doubt 
our station. 

Petrarca. Giovanni, you are unsuspicious, and would 
scarcely see a monster in a minotaur. It is well, however, to 
draw good out of evil, and it is the peculiar gift of an elevated 
mind. Nevertheless, you must have observed, although with 
greater curiosity than concern, the shpperiness and tortuous- 
ness of your detractors. 

Boccaccio. Whatever they detract from me, they leave more 
than they can carry away. Besides, they always are detected. 

Petrarca. When they are detected, they raise themselves 
up fiercely, as if their nature were erect and they could reach 
your height. 

Boccaccio. Envy would conceal herself under the shadow 
and shelter of contemptuousness, but she swells too huge for 
the den she creeps into. Let her lie there and crack, and 
think no more about her. The people you have been talking 
of can find no greater and no other faults in my writings than 
I myself am willing to show them, and still more wilhng to cor- 
rect. There are many things, as you have just now told me, 
very unworthy of their company. 

Petrarca. He who has much gold is none the poorer for 
having much silver too. When a king of old displayed his 
wealth and magnificence before a philosopher, the philosopher's 
exclamation was, " How many things are here which I do not 
want ! " 

Does not the same reflection come upon us, when we have 
laid aside our compositions for a time, and look into them 
again more leisurely? Do we not wonder at our own pro- 
fusion, and say like the philosopher, " How many things are 
here which I do not want ! " 

It may happen that we pull up flowers with weeds ; but 
better this than rankness. We must bear to see our first-bom 
despatched before our eyes, and give them up quietly. 

Boccaccio. The younger will be the most reluctant. There 
are poets among us who mistake in themselves the freckles of 
the hay-fever for beauty-spots. In another half-century their 

7 



98 THE PENTAMERON. 

volumes will be inquired after ; but only for the sake of cutting 
out an illuminated letter from the titlepage, or of transplanting 
the willow at the end, that hangs so prettily over the tomb of 
Amaryllis. If they wish to be healthy and vigorous, let them 
open their bosoms to the breezes of Sunium; for the air of 
Latium is heavy and overcharged. Above all, they must re- 
member two admonitions : first, that sweet things hurt diges- 
tion ; secondly, that great sails are ill adapted to small vessels. 
What is there lovely in poetry unless there be moderation and 
composure? Are they not better than the hot, uncontrollable 
harlotry of a flaunting, dishevelled enthusiasm ? Whoever has 
the power of creating, has likewise the inferior power of keep- 
ing his creation in order. The best poets are the most im- 
pressive, because their steps are regular ; for without regularity 
there is neither strength nor state. Look at Sophocles, look at 
.^schylus, look at Homer. 

Fetrarca. I agree with you entirely to the whole extent of 
your observations ; and if you will continue, I am ready to lay 
aside my Dante for the present. 

Boccaccio. No, no ; we must have him again between us : 
there is no danger that he will sour our tempers, 

Petrarca. In comparing his and yours, since you forbid me 
to declare all I think of your genius, you will at least allow me 
to congratulate you as being the happier of the two. 

Boccaccio. Frequently, when there is great power in poetry, 
the imagination makes encroachments on the heart, and uses it 
as her own. I have shed tears on writings which never cost 
the writer a sigh, but which occasioned him to rub the palms 
of his hands together, until they were ready to strike fire, with 
satisfaction at having overcome the difficulty of being tender. 

Fetrarca. Giovanni, are you not grown satirical? 

Boccaccio. Not in this. It is a truth as broad and glaring 
as the eye of the Cyclops. To make you amends for your shud- 
dering, I will express my doubt, on the other hand, whether 
Dante felt all the indignation he threw into his poetry. We 
are immoderately fond of warming ourselves ; and we do not 
think, or care, what the fire is composed of. Be sure it is not 
always of cedar, like Circe's.^ Our Alighieri had slipped into 

1 Dives inaccessis ubi Solis filia lucis 
Urit odoratam nocturna in lumina cedrum. — ^neid. 



THE PENTAMERON, 99 

the habit of vituperation ; and he thought it fitted him, — so he 
never left it off. 

Pet7-arca. Serener colors are pleasanter to our eyes and 
more becoming to our character. The chief desire in every 
man of genius is to be thought one ; and no fear ox appre- 
hension lessens it. Alighieri, who had certainly studied the 
gospel, must have been conscious that he not only was inhu- 
mane, but that he betraj'-ed a more vindictive spirit than any 
pope or prelate who is enshrined within the fretwork of his 
golden grating. 

Boccaccio. Unhappily, his strong talon had grown into him, 
and it would have pained him to suffer its amputation. This 
eagle, unlike Jupiter's, never loosened the thunderbolt from it 
under the influence of harmony. 

Petj-arca. The only good thing we can expect in such 
minds and tempers is good poetry ; let us at least get that, and 
having it, let us keep and value it. If you had never written 
some wanton stories, you would never have been able to show 
the world how much wiser and better you grew afterward. 

Boccacdo. Alas ! if I live, I hope to show it. You have 
raised my spirits ; and now, dear Francesco, do say a couple of 
prayers for me, while I lay together the materials of a tale, — a 
right merry one, I promise you. Faith ! it shall amuse you, 
and pay decently for the prayers, — a good honest litany- worth. 
I hardly know whether I ought to have a nun in it : do you 
think I may? 

Petrarca, Cannot you do without one? 

Boccaccio. No I a nun I must have, — say nothing against 
her ; I can more easily let the abbess alone. Yet Frate Biagio,* 

1 Our San Vivaldo is enriched by Ms deposit. In the church, on the 
fifth flagstone from before the high altar, is tliis inscription : — 
Hic srrus est, 

EEATAM IMMORTAHTATEM EXPECTANS, 

D. BLASIUS DE BLASIIS, 

HUJUS CCENOBH ABBAS, 

SINGULARI VIR CHARITATE, 

MORIBUS INTEGERRIMIS, 

REI THEOLOGICjE NEC NON PHYSICS 

PERITISSIMUS. 

ORATE PRO ANIMA EJUS. 

To the word orate have been prefixed the letters PL, — the aspiration, no 
doubt, of some friendly monk, although Monsignore thinks it susceptible 
of two interpretations J the other he reserves in petto. — Domenico Grigi. 



lOO THE PENTAMERON. 

— that Frate Biagio, who never came to visit me but when he 
thought I was at extremities or asleep — Assuntina ! are you 
there ? 

Petrarca. No; do you want her? 

Boccaccio. Not a bit. That Frate Biagio has heightened 
my pulse when I could not lower it again. The very devil is 
that Frate for heightening pulses. And with him I shall now 
make merry, — God willing ! — in God's good time, should it 
be his divine will to restore me, which I think he has begun 
to do miraculously. I seem to be within a frog's leap of well 
again ; and we will presently have some rare fun in my " Tale 
of the Frate." 

Petrarca. Do not openly name him. 

Boccaccio. He shall recognize himself by one single expres- 
sion. He said to me, when I was at the worst, — 

" Ser Giovanni, it would not be much amiss (with permis- 
sion !) if you begin to think (at any spare time) just a morsel 
of eternity." 

" Ah ! Fra Biagio ! " answered I, contritely, " I never heard 
a sermon of yours but I thought of it seriously and uneasily 
long before the discourse was over." 

" So must all," replied he ; " and yet few have the grace to 
own it." 

Now, mind, Francesco ! if it should please the Lord to call 
me unto him, I say " The Nun and Fra Biagio " will be found, 
after my decease, in the closet cut out of the wall, behind yon 
Saint Zacharias in blue and yellow. 

Well done ! well done ! Francesco. I never heard any man 
repeat his prayers so fast and fluently. Why ! how many (at a 
guess) have you repeated? Such is the power of friendship, 
and such the habit of religion ! They have done me good ; I 
feel myself stronger already. To-morrow I think I shall be 
able, by leaning on that stout maple stick in the comer, to walk 
hajf over my podere. 

Have you done ? Have you done ? 

Petrarca. Be. quiet ; you may talk too much. 

Boccaccio. I cannot be quiet for another hour ; so if you 
have any more prayers to get over, stick the spur into the other 
side of them ; they must verily speed, if they beat the last. 

Petrarca. Be more serious, dear Giovanni. 



THE PENTAMERON. lOI 

Boccaccio. Never bid a convalescent be more serious ; no, 
nor a sick man neither. To health it may give that composure 
which it takes away from sickness. Every man will have his 
hours of seriousness, but like the hours of rest, they often are 
ill chosen and unwholesome. Be assured, our Heavenly Father 
is as well pleased to see his children in the playground as in 
the schoolroom. He has provided both for us, and has given 
us intimations when each should occupy us. 

Petrarca. You are right, Giovanni ; but we know which bell 
is heard the most distinctly. We fold our arms at the one, try 
the cooler part of the pillow, and turn again to slumber ; at the 
first stroke of the other, we are beyond our monitors. As for 
you, hardly Dante himself could make you grave. 

Boccaccio. I do not remember how it happened that we 
slipped away from his side. One of us must have found him 
tedious. 

Petrarca. If you were really and substantially at his side, 
he would have no mercy on you. 

Boccaccio. In sooth, our good Alighieri seems to have had 
the appetite of a dogfish or shark, and to have bitten the harder 
the warmer he was. I would not voluntarily be under his mani- 
fold rows of dentals. He has an incisor to every saint in the 
calendar. I should fare, methinks, Hke Brutus and the Arch- 
bishop. He is forced to stretch himself, out of sheer listless- 
ness, in so idle a place as Purgatory ; he loses half his strength 
in Paradise. Hell alone makes him alert and lively ; there he 
moves about and threatens as tremendously as the serpent that 
opposed the legions on their march in Africa. He would not 
have been contented in Tuscany itself, even had his enemies 
left him unmolested. Were I to write on his model a tripartite 
poem, I think it should be entitled, " Earth, Italy, and Heaven." 

Petrarca. You will never give yourself the trouble. 

Boccaccio. I should not succeed. 

Petrarca. Perhaps not ; but you have done very much, and 
may be able to do very much more. 

Boccaccio. Wonderful is it to me, when I consider that an 
infirm and helpless creature as I am should be capable of laying 
thoughts up in their cabinets of words, which Time, as he rushes 
by with the revolutions of stormy and destructive years, can 
never move from their places. On this coarse mattress, one 



102 THE PENTAMERON,. 

among the homeliest in the fair at Impruneta,. is. stretched an 
old burgess of Certaldo, of whom perhaps more will be known 
hereafter than we know of the Ptolemies and the Pharaohs ; 
while popes and princes are lying as unregarded as the fleas 
that are shaken out of the window. Upon my life, Francesco, 
to think of this is enough to make a man presumptuous. 

Petraraa. No, Giovanni,, not when the man thinks justly of 
it, as such a man ought to do, and must. For so mighty a 
power over Time, who casts all other mortals under his, comes 
down to us from a greater ; and it is only if we abuse the vic- 
tory that it were better we had encountered a defeat. Unre- 
mitting care must be taken that nothing soil the monuments 
we are raising: sure enough we are that nothing can subvert, 
and nothing but our negligence, or worse than negligence, efface 
them. Under the glorious^ lamp intrusted to your vigilance, 
one among the lights of the world which the ministering angels 
of our God have suspended for his service, let there stand, with 
unclosing eyes, Integrity, Compassion, Self-denial. 

Boccaccio, These are holier and cheerfuEer images than 
Dante has been setting up before us. I hope every thesis in 
dispute among his theologians will be settled ere I set foot 
among them. I hke Tuscany well enough, — it answers all 
my purposes for the present ; and I am without the benefit of 
those preliminary studies which might render me a worthy 
auditor of incomprehensible wisdom. 

Petrarca. I do not wonder you are attached to Tuscany. 
Many as have been your visits and adventures in other parts, 
you have rendered it pleasanter and more interesting than any ; 
and indeed we can scarcely walk in any quarter from the gates 
of Florence without the recollection of some witty or affecting 
story related by you. Every street, every farm, is peopled by 
your genius ; and this population cannot change with seasons or 
with ages, with factions or with incursions. Ghibellines and 
Guelphs will have been contested for only by the worms, long 
before the " Decameron " has ceased to be recited on our banks 
of blue lihes and under our arching vines. Another plague may 
come amidst us ; and something of a solace in so terrible a 
visitation would be found in your pages, by those to whom 
letters are a refuge and relief. 

Boccaccio. I do indeed think my little bevy from Santa 



THE PENTAMERON. IO3 

Maria Novella would be better company on such an occasion 
than a devil with three heads, who diverts the pain his claws 
inflicted by sticking his fangs in another place. 

Petrarca. This is atrocious, not terrific nor grand. Alighieri 
is grand by his lights, not by his shadows ; by his human affec- 
tions, not by his infernal. As the minutest sands are the labors 
of some profound sea or the spoils of some vast mountain, in 
like manner his horrid wastes and wearying minutenesses are the 
chafings of a turbulent spirit, grasping the loftiest things and 
penetrating the deepest, and moviug and moaning on the earth 
in loneliness and sadness. 

Boccaccio. Among men he is what among waters is 

The strange, mysterious, solitary Nile. 

Petrarca. Is that his verse ? I do not remember it. 

Boccaccio. No, it is mine for the present ; how long it may 
continue mine, I cannot tell. I never run after those who steal 
my apples, — it would only tire me ; and they are hardly worth 
recovering when they are biiiised and bitten, as they are usu- 
ally. I would not stand upon my verses ; it is a perilous boy's 
trick, which we ought to leave off when we put on square shoes. 
Let our prose show what we are, and our poetry what we have 
been. 

Petrarca. You would never have given this advice to our 
Alighieri. 

Boccaccio. I would never plough porphyry ; there is ground 
fitter for grain. Alighieri is the parent of his system, — like the 
sun, about whom all the worlds are but particles thrown forth 
from him. We may write little things well, and accumulate 
one upon another, but never will any be justly called a great 
poet unless he has treated a great subject worthily. He may 
be the poet of the lover and of the idler, he may be the poet 
of green fields or gay society ; but whoever is this can be no 
more. A throne is not built of birds' nests, nor do a thousand 
reeds make a trumpet. 

Petraj'ca. I wish our Alighieri had blown his on nobler 
occasions. 

Boccaccio. We may rightly wish it ; but in regretting what 
he wanted, let us acknowledge what he had, and never forget 
(which we omitted to mention) that he borrowed less from his 



104 THE PENTAMERON. 

predecessors than apy of the Roman poets from theirs. Rea- 
sonably may it be expected that ahnost all who follow will be 
greatly more indebted to antiquity, to whose stores we every 
year are making some addition. 

Petrarca. It can be held no flaw in the title-deeds of genius 
if the same thoughts reappear as have been exhibited long ago. 
The indisputable sign of defect should be looked for in the 
proportion they bear to the unquestionably original. There are 
ideas which necessarily must occur to minds of the like magni- 
tude and materials, aspect and temperature. When two ages 
are in the same phasis, they will excite the same humors, and 
produce the same coincidences and combinations. In addition 
to which, a great poet may really borrow ; he may even con- 
descend to an obligation at the hand of an equal or inferior, — 
but he forfeits his title if he borrows more than the amount of 
his own possessions. The nightingale himself takes somewhat 
of his song from birds less glorified ; and the lark, having 
beaten with her wing the very gates of heaven, cools her breast 
among the grass. The lowlier of intellect may lay out a table 
in their field, at which table the highest one shall sometimes 
be disposed to partake ; want does not compel him. Imita- 
tion, as we call it, is often weakness, but it likewise is often 
sympathy. 

Boccaccio. Our poet was seldom accessible in this quarter. 
Invective picks up the first stone on the wayside, and wants 
leisure to consult a forerunner. 

Petrarca. Dante, original enough everywhere, is coarse and 
clumsy in this career. Vengeance has nothing to do with com- 
edy, nor properly with satire. The satirist who told us that 
Indignation made his verses ^ for him, might have been told in 
return that she excluded him thereby from the first class, and 
thrust him among the rhetoricians and declaimers. Lucretius, 
in his vituperation, is graver and more dignified than Alighieri. 
Painful, to see how tolerant is the atheist, how intolerant the 
Catholic, how anxiously the one removes from among the suffer- 
ings of mortality her last and heaviest, — the fear of a vindictive 
fury pursuing her shadow across rivers of fire and tears, — how 
laboriously the other brings down anguish and despair, even 
when death has done his work. How grateful the one is to that 

^ Facit indignatio versum. — Juvenal. 



THE PENTAMERON. IO5 

beneficent philosopher who made him at peace with himself, 
and tolerant and kindly toward his fellow-creatures ! How im- 
portunate the other that God should forego his divine mercy, and 
hurl everlasting torments both upon the dead and the living ! 

Boccaccio. I have always heard that Ser Dante was a very 
good man and sound Catholic ; but Christ forgive me if my 
heart is oftener on the side of Lucretius.-^ Observe, I say my 
heart ; nothing more. I devoutly hold to the sacraments and 
the mysteries ; yet somehow I would rather see men tranquil- 
lized than frightened out of their senses, and rather fast asleep 
than burning. Sometimes I have been ready to believe, as far 
as our holy faith will allow me, that it were better our Lord were 
nowhere than torturing in his inscrutable wisdom, to all eternity, 
so many myriads of us poor devils, the creatures of his hands. 
Do not cross thyself so thickly, Francesco, nor hang down 
thy nether lip so loosely, languidly, and helplessly, for I would 
be a good Catholic, alive or dead. But upon my conscience, 
it goes hard with me to think it of him, when I hear that wood- 
lark yonder gushing with joyousness, or when I see the beauti- 
ful clouds, resting so softly upon one another, dissolving — and 
not damned for it. Above all, I am slow to apprehend it 
when I remember his great goodness vouchsafed to me, and 
reflect on my sinful life heretofore, chiefly in summer time, and 
in cities or their vicinity. But I was tempted beyond my 
strength, and I fell as any man might do. However, this last 
illness, by God's grace, has well-nigh brought me to my right 
mind again in all such matters ; and if I get stout in the 
present month, and can hold out the next without sliding, 
I do verily think I am safe, or nearly so, until the season of 
beccaficoes. 

Petrarca. Be not too confident ! 

Boccaccio. Well, I will not be. 

Petrarca. But be firm. 

Boccaccio. Assuntina ! what ! are you come in again? 

Assunta. Did you or my master call me, Riverenza? 

Petrarca. No, child ! 

Boccaccio. Oh, get you gone ! get you gone ! you little 
rogue you ! Francesco, I feel quite well. Your kindness to my 

1 Query : How much of Lucretius (or Petronius or Catullus, before 
cited) was then known ? — Remark by Monsigiiore. 



I06 THE PENTAMERON. 

playful creatures i"^ *^^ " Decameron" has revived me, and has 
put me into goP^ humor with the greater part of them. Are 
you quite certain the Madonna will not expect me to keep my 
promise ? ^ou said you were ; I need not ask you again, I will 
accept ttie whole of your assurances, and half your praises. 
^ Pttrarca. To represent so vast a variety of personages so 
characteristically as you have done, to give the wise all their 
wisdom, the witty all their wit, and (what is harder to do 
advantageously) the simple all their simplicity, requires a 
genius such as you alone possess. Those who doubt it are 
the least dangerous of your rivals. 



FIFTH DAY'S INTERVIEW. 

It being now the last morning that Petrarca could remain 
with his friend, he resolved to pass early into his bed-chamber. 
Boccaccio had risen, and was standing at the open window, 
with his arms against it. Renovated health sparkled in the 
eyes of the one ; surprise and delight and thankfulness to 
Heaven filled the other's with sudden tears. He clasped 
Giovanni, kissed his flaccid and sallow cheek, and falling on 
his knees, adored the Giver of life, the source of health to body 
and soul. Giovanni was not unmoved ; he bent one knee as 
he leaned on the shoulder of Francesco, looking down into his 
face, repeating his words, and adding, — 

" Blessed be thou, O Lord ! who sendest me health again ! 
and blessings on thy inessenger who brought it ! " 

He had slept soundly ; for ere he closed his eyes he had 
unburdened his mind of its freight, not only by employing the 
prayers appointed by Holy Church, but likewise by ejaculating ; 
as sundry of the Fathers did of old. He acknowledged his 
contrition for many transgressions, and chiefly for uncharitable 
thoughts of Fra Biagio ; on which occasion he turned fairly 
round on his couch, and leaning his brow against the wall, and 
his body being in a becomingly curved position, and proper 
for the purpose, he thus ejaculated, — 

" Thou knowest, O most Holy Virgin ! that never have 



THE PENTAMERON. 10/ 

I spoken to handmaiden at this villetta, or within my mansion 
at Certaldo, wantonly or indiscreetly, but have always been, 
inasmuch as may be, the guardian of innocence ; deemmg it 
better, when irregular thoughts assailed me, to ventilate them 
abroad than to poison the house with them. And if, sinner as 
I am, I have thought uncharitably of others, and more es- 
pecially of Fra Biagio, pardon me, out of thy exceeding great 
-mercies ! And let it not be imputed to me, if I have kept, 
and may keep hereafter, an eye over him, in wariness and 
watchfulness ; not otherwise. For thou knowest, O Madonna ! 
that many who have a perfect and unwavering faith in thee, yet 
do cover up their cheese from the nibblings of vermin." 

Whereupon, he turned round again, threw himself on his 
back at full length, and feeling the sheets cool, smooth, and 
refreshing, folded his arms and slept instantaneously. The 
consequence of his wholesome slumber was a calm alacrity ; 
and the idea that his visitor would be happy at seeing him on 
his feet again made him attempt to get up : at which he suc- 
ceeded, to his own wonder, — it being increased by the mani- 
festation of his strength in opening the casement, stiff from 
being closed, and swelled by the continuance of the rains. The 
morning was warm and sunny ; and it is known that on this oc- 
casion he composed the verses below : — 

My old familiar cottage green ! 
I see once more thy pleasant sheen, 
The gossamer suspended over 
Smart celandine by lusty clover, 
And the last blossom of the plum 
■ Inviting her first leaves to come, — 
Which hang a little back, but show 
'T is not their nature to say no. 
I scarcely am in voice to sing 
How graceful are the steps of Spring ; 
And, ah ! it makes me sigh to look 
How leaps along my merry brook, 
The very same to-day as when 
He chirrupped first to maids and men. 

Petrarca. I can rejoice at the freshness of your feelings ; 
but the sight of the green turf reminds me rather of its ultimate 
use and destination, — 

For many serves the parish pall, 
The turf in common serves for all. 



I08 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. Very true ; and such being the case, let us care- 
fully fold it up and lay it by until we call for it. 

Francesco, you made me quite light-headed yesterday. I am 
rather too old to dance either with Spring, as I have been saying, 
or with Vanity ; and yet I accepted her at your hand as a part- 
ner. In future, no more of comparisons for me ! You not only 
can do me no good, but you can leave me no pleasure ; for here 
I shall remain the few days I have to live, and shall see nobody 
who will be disposed to remind me of your praises. Besides, 
you yourself will get hated for them. We neither can deserve 
praise nor receive it with impunity. 

Petrarca. Have you never remarked that it is into quiet 
water that children throw pebbles to disturb it ; and that it is 
into deep caverns that the idle drop sticks and dirt? We must 
expect such treatment. 

Boccaccio. Your admonition shall have its wholesome in- 
fluence over me, when the fever your praises have excited has 
grown moderate. 

— After the conversation on this topic and various others 
had continued some time, it was interrupted by a visitor. The 
clergy and monkery at Certaldo had never been cordial with 
Messer Giovanni, it being suspected that certain of his Novelle 
were modelled on originals in their orders. Hence, although 
they indeed both professed and felt esteem for Canonico Pe- 
trarca, they abstained from expressing it at the villetta. But 
Frate Biagio of San Vivaldo was (by his own appointment) 
the friend of the house ; and being considered as very expert 
in pharmacy, had day after day brought over no indifferent store 
of simples, in ptisans and other refections, during the continuance 
of Ser Giovanni's ailment. Something now moved him to cast 
about in his mind whether it might not appear dutiful to make 
another visit. Perhaps he thought it possible that among those 
who peradventure had seen him lately on the road, one or other 
might expect from him a solution of the questions, What sort 
of person was the crowned martyr ; whether he carried a palm 
in his hand j whether a seam was visible across the throat ; 
whether he wore a ring over his glove, with a chrysolite in it, 
like the bishops, but representing the city of Jerusalem and the 
judgment-seat of Pontius Pilate ? Such were the reports ; but 
the inhabitants of San Vivaldo could not believe the Certaldese, 



THE PENTAMERON. IO9 

who, inhabiting the next township to them, were naturally their 
enemies. Yet they might beheve Frate Biagio, and certainly 
would interrogate him accordingly. He formed his determi- 
nation, put his frock and hood on, and gave a curvature to his 
shoe, to evince his knowledge of the world, by pushing the ex- 
tremity of it with his breast-bone against the corner of his cell. 
Studious of his figure and of his attire, he walked as much as 
possible on his heels, to keep up the reformation he had wrought 
in the workmanship of the cordwainer. On former occasions he 
had borrowed a horse, as being wanted to hear confession or to 
carry medicines, which might otherwise be too late. But having 
put on an entirely new habiliment, and it being the season when 
horses are beginning to do the same, he deemed it prudent to 
travel on foot. Approaching the villetta, his first intention was 
to walk directly into his patient's room ; but he found it impos- 
sible to resist the impulses of pride in showing Assunta his rigid 
and stately frock, with shoes rather of the equestrian order than 
the monastic. So he went into the kitchen where the girl was 
at work, having just taken away the remains of the breakfast. 

"Frate Biagio ! " cried she, " is this you? Have you been 
sleeping at Conte Jeronimo's?" 

" Not I," repUed he. 

"Why!" said she, "those are surely his shoes! Santa 
Maria ! you must have put them on in the dusk of the morn- 
ing, to say your prayers in ! Here, here ! take these old ones 
of Signor Padrone, for the love of God ! I hope your rev- 
erence met nobody." 

Frate. What dost smile at? 

Assunta. Smile at ! I could find in my heart to laugh out- 
right, if I only were certain that nobody had seen your rev- 
erence in such a funny trim. Riverenza, put on these. 

Frate. Not I, indeed. 

Assunta. Allow me, then? 

Frate. No, nor you. 

Assunta. Then let me stand upon yours, to push down the 
points. 

Frate Biagio now began to relent a little, when Assunta, who 
had made one step toward the project, bethought herself sud- 
denly, and said, " No ; I might miss my footing. But, mercy 
upon us ! what made you cramp your reverence with those 



no THE PENTAMERON. 

ox-yoke shoes, and strangle your reverence with that hang- dog 
collar?" 

" If you must know," answered the Frate, reddening, " it was 
because I am making a visit to the Canonico of Parma. I 
should like to know something about him : perhaps you could 
tell me?" 

Assunta, Ever so much, 

Frate. I thought no less ; indeed, I knew it. Which goes 
to bed first? 

Assunta. Both together. 

Frate. Demonio ! what dost mean? 

Assunta. He tells me never to sit up waiting, but to say 
my prayers and dream of the Virgin. 

Frate. As if it were any business of his \ Does he put out 
his lamp himself ? 

Assunta. To be sure he does ; why should not he ? What 
should he be afraid of ? It is not winter ; and besides, there 
is a mat upon the floor, all around the bed, excepting the top 
and bottom. 

Frate. I am quite convinced he never said anything to 
make you blush. Why are you silent? 

Assunta. I have a right. 

Frate. He did then — ay ? Do not nod your head ; that 
will never do. Discreet girls speak plainly. 

Assunta. What would you have ? 

Frate, The truth 1 the truth J again, I say the truth J 

Assunta. He did then. 

Frate. I knew it J The most dangerous man living ! 

Assunta. Ah ] indeed he is ! Signor Padrone said so. 

Frate. He knows him of old : he warned you, it seems. 

Assunta. Me J He never said it was I who was in danger. 

Frate. He might : it was his duty. 

Assunta. Am I so fat? Lord ! you may feel every rib. 
Girls who run about as I do slip away from apoplexy. 

Frate. Ho ! ho ! that is ail, is it ? 

Assunta. And bad enough too ! that such good-natured 
men should ever grow so bulky, and stand in danger, as Pa- 
drone said they both do, of such a seizure 1 

Frate. What ! and art ready to cry about it ? Old folks 
cannot die easier ; and there are always plenty of younger to 



THE PENTAMERON. HI 

run quick enough for a confessor. But I must not trifle in this 
manner. It is my duty to set your feet in the right way ; it is 
my bounden duty to report to Ser Giovanni all irregularities I 
know of, committed in his domicile. I could indeed, and 
would, remit a trifle, on hearing the worst. Tell me now, As- 
sunta ! tell me, you little angel ! did you — we all may, the 
very best of us may, and do — sin, my sweet ? 

Assunta. You may be sure I do not ; for whenever I sin I 
run into church directly, although it snows or thunders : else I 
never could see again Padrone's face, or any one's. 

Frate. You do not come to me. 

Assunta. You live at San Vivaldo. 

Frate. But when there is sin so pressing I am always 
ready to be found. You perplex, you puzzle me. Tell me at 
once how he made you blush. 

Assunta. Well, then ! 

Frate. Well, then ! you did not hang back so before him. 
I lose all patience. 

Assunta. So famous a man — 

Frate. No excuse in that. 

Assunta. So dear to Padrone — 

Frate. The more shame for him ! 

Assunta. Called me — 

Frate. And called you, did he ? the traitorous swine ! 

Assunta. Called me — good girl. 

Frate. Psha ! the wenches, I think, are all mad : but few 
of them in this manner. 

Without saying another word, Fra Biagio went forward and 
opened the bed-chamber door, saying briskly, " Servant, Ser 
Giovanni ! Ser Canonico ! most devoted, most obsequious ! 
I venture to incommode you. Thanks to God, Ser Canonico, 
you are looking well for your years. They tell me you were 
formerly (who would believe it !) the handsomest man in 
Christendom, and worked your way glibly yonder at Avignon. 

" Capperi, Ser Giovanni ! I never observed that you were 
sitting bolt upright in that long-backed arm-chair, instead of 
lying abed. Quite in the right. I am rejoiced at such a 
change for the better. Who advised it?" 

Boccaccio. So many thanks to Fra Biagio ! I not only am 



112 THE PENTAMERON. 

sitting up, but have taken a draught of fresh air at the window, 
and every leaf had a little present of sunshine for me. 

There is one pleasure, Fra Biagio, which I fancy you never 
have experienced, and I hardly know whether I ought to wish it 
you, — the first sensation of health after a long confinement. 

Frate. Thanks, infinite ! I would take any man's word for 
that, without a wish to try it. Everybody tells me I am ex- 
actly what I was a dozen years ago, while for my part I see 
everybody changed ; those who ought to be much about my 
age, even those — Per Bacco ! I told them my thoughts when 
they had told me theirs ; and they were not so agreeable as 
they used to be in former days. 

Boccaccio. How people hate sincerity ! 

Cospetto ! why, Frate, what hast got upon thy toes ? Hast 
killed some Tartar and tucked his bow into one, and torn the 
crescent from the vizier's tent to make the other match it? 
Hadst thou fallen in thy mettlesome expedition (and it is a 
mercy and a miracle thou didst not !) those sacrilegious shoes 
would have impaled thee. 

Frate. It was a mistake in the shoemaker. But no pain or 
incommodity whatsoever could detain me from paying my duty 
to Ser Canonico the first moment I heard of his auspicious 
arrival, or from offering my congratulations to Ser Giovanni, 
on the annunciation that he was recovered and looking out of 
the window. All Tuscany was standing on the watch for it, 
and the news flew like lightning. By this time it is upon the 
Danube. 

And pray, Ser Canonico, how does Madonna Laura do? 

Petrarca. Peace to her gentle spirit ! she is departed. 

Frate. Ay, true. I had quite forgotten ; that is to say, 
I recollect it. You told us as much, I think, in a poem on her 
death. Well, and do you know, our friend Giovanni here is 
a bit of an author in his way. 

Boccaccio. Frate, you confuse my modesty ! 

Frate. Murder will out. It is a fact, on my conscience. 
Have you never heard anything about it, Canonico ? Ha ! we 
poets are sly fellows ; we can keep a secret. 

Boccaccio. Are you quite sure you can? 

Frate. Try, and trust me with any. I am a confessional 
on legs ; there is no more a whisper in me than in a woolsack. 



THE PENTAMERON. II3 

I am in feather again as you see ; and in tune, as you shall 
hear. April is not the month for moping. Sing it lustily ! 

Boccaccio. Let it be your business to sing it, being a Frate ; 
I can only recite it. 
Frate. Pray do, then. 
Boccaccio. 

Frate Biagio ! sempre quando 

Qua tu vieni cavalcando, 

Pensi che le buone strade '^ 

Per il mondo sien ben rade ; 

E, di quante sono brutte, 

La pill brutta e tua di tutte. 

Badi, non cascare sulle 

Graziosissime fanciulle, 

Che con capo dritto, alzato, 

Uova portano al mercato. 

Pessima mi pare I'opra 

Rovesciarle sottosopra. 

Deh ! scansando le erte e sassi, 

Sempre con premura passi. 

Caro amico ! Frate Biagio ! 

Passi pur, ma passi adagio.^ 

Frate. Well now, really, Canonico, for one not exactly one 
of us, that canzone of Ser Giovanni has merit ; has not it ? I 
did not ride, however, to-day, as you may see by the lining of 
my frock. But plus non vitiat, — ay, Canonico? About the 
roads he is right enough ; they are the Devil's own roads ; that 
must be said for them. 

Ser Giovanni, with permission : your mention of eggs in 
the canzone has induced me to fancy I could eat a pair of 
them. The hens lay well now : that white one of yours is 
worth more than the goose that laid the golden ; and you 

1 Avendo io fatto comparire nel nostro idioma toscano, e senza tra- 
duzione, i leggiadri versi sopra stampati, chiedo perdono da clii legge. 
Non potei, badando con dovuta premura ai miei interessi ed a quelli del 
proposito mio, non potei, dico, far di meno ; stanteche una riunione 
de'critici, i piu vistosi del Regno unito d'Inghilterra ed Irlanda, avra con 
unanimita dichiarato, che nessuno, di quanti esistono i mortali, sapra mai 
indovinare la versione. Stimo assai il tradduttore ; lavora per poco, e 
agevolmente; mi pare piutosto galantuomo; non c' e male; ma poeta 
poco felice poi. Parlano que' Signori critici riveritissimi di certi poemetti 
e frammenti gia da noi ammessi in questo volume, ed an che di altri del 
medesimo autore forse originali, e restano di avviso commune, che non vi 
sia neppure una sola parola veramente da intendersi ; che il senso (chi sa ?) 
sara di ateisimo, ovvero di alto tradimento, Che questo non lo sia, ne palse- 
samente ne occultamente, fermo col proprio pugno. — Domenico Grigi. 



114 THE PENTAMERON. 

have a store of others, her equals or betters. We have none 
Uke them at poor San Vivaldo. A rivederci, Ser Giovanni / 
Schiavo, Ser Canonico ! mi commandino. 

Fra Biagio went back into the kitchen, helped himself to a 
quarter of a loaf, ordered a flask of wine, and trying several 
eggs against his hps, selected seven, which he himself fried 
in oil, although the maid offered her services. He never had 
been so little disposed to enter into conversation with her ; and 
on her asking him how he found her master, he replied that 
in bodily health Ser Giovanni, by his prayers and ptisans, had 
much improved, but that his faculties were wearing out apace. 
" He may now run in the same couples with the canonico ; they 
cannot catch the mange one of the other ; the one could say 
nothing to the purpose, and the other nothing at all. The 
whole conversation was entirely at my charge," added he. 
" And now, Assunta, since you press it, I will accept the ser- 
vice of your master's shoes. How I shall ever get home I don't 
know." He took the shoes off the handles of the bellows, where 
Assunta had placed them out of her way, and tucking one of 
his own under each arm, limped toward San Vivaldo. 

The unwonted attention to smartness of apparel in the only 
article wherein it could be displayed, was suggested to Frate 
Biagio by hearing that Ser Francesco, accustomed to courtly 
habits and elegant society, and having not only small hands 
but small feet, usually wore red slippers in the morning. Fra 
Biagio had scarcely left the outer door than he cordially cursed 
Ser Francesco for making such a fool of him, and for wearing 
slippers of black list. " These canonicoes," said he, " not only 
lie themselves, but teach everybody else to do the same. He 
has lamed me for life ; I burn as if I had been shod at the 
blacksmith's forge." 

The two friends said nothing about him, but continued the 
discourse which his visit had interrupted. 

Petrarca. Turn again, I entreat you, to the serious ; and 
do not imagine that because by nature you are inclined to 
playfulness you must therefore write ludicrous things better. 
Many of your stories would make the gravest men laugh, and 
yet there is little wit in them. 



THE PENTAMERON. II5 

Boccaccio. I think so myself; though authors, Httle dis- 
posed as they are to doubt their possession of any quahty they 
would bring into play, are least of all suspicious on the side of 
wit. You have convinced me. I am glad to have been ten- 
der, and to have written tenderly, for I am certain it is this 
alone that has made you love me with such affection. 

Petrarca. Not this alone, Giovanni; but this principally. 
I have always found you kind and compassionate, liberal and 
sincere ; and when Fortune does not stand very close to such a 
man, she leaves only the more room for Friendship. 

Boccaccio. Let her stand off then, now and forever ! To 
my heart, to my heart, Francesco ! preserver of my health, my 
peace of mind, and (since you tell me I may claim it) my 
glory. 

Petrarca. Recovering your strength, you must pursue your 
studies to complete it. What can you have been doing with 
your books? I have searched in vain this morning for the 
treasury. Where are they kept ? Formerly they were always 
open. I found only a short manuscript, which I suspect is 
poetry; but I ventured not on looking into it until I had 
brought it with me and laid it before you. 

Boccaccio. Well guessed ! They are verses written by a 
gentleman who resided long in this country, and who much re- 
gretted the necessity of leaving it. He took great dehght in 
composing both Latin and Italian, but never kept a copy of 
them latterly, so that these are the only ones I could obtain 
from him. Read, for your voice will improve them : — 

TO MY CHILD CARLINO. 

Carlino, what art thou about, my boy ? 

Often I ask that question, though in vain, 

For we are far apart. Ah ! therefore 't is 

I often ask it ; not in such a tone 

As wiser fathers do, who know too well. 

Were we not children, you and I together 1 

Stole we not glances from each other's eyes ? 

Swore we not secrecy in such misdeeds ? 

Well could we trust each other. Tell me then 

What thou art doing. Carving out thy name, 

Or haply mine, upon my favorite seat, 

With the new knife I sent thee over sea ? 

Or hast thou broken it, and hid the hilt 

Among the myrtles, starred with flowers, behind ? 



Il6 THE PENTAMERON. 

Or under that high throne whence fifty lilies 
(With sworded tuberoses dense around) 
Lift up their heads at once, not without fear 
That they were looking at thee all the while ? 

Does Cincirillo follow thee about ? 
Inverting one swart foot suspensively, 
And wagging his dread jaw at every chirp 
Of bird above him on the olive-branch ? 
Frighten him then away ! 't was he who slew 
Our pigeons, our white pigeons peacock-tailed, 
That feared not you and me — alas, nor him ! 
I flattened his striped sides along my knee. 
And reasoned with him on his bloody mind, 
Till he looked blandly, and half closed his eyes 
To ponder on my lecture in the shade. 
I doubt his memory much, his heart a little, 
And in some minor matters (may I say it?) 
Could wish him rather sager. But from thee 
God hold back wisdom yet for many years ! 
Whether in early season or in late, 
It always comes high-priced. For thy pure breast 
I have no lesson : it for me has many. 
Come throw it open then 1 What sports, what cares 
(Since there are none too young for these) engage 
Thy busy thoughts ? Are you again at work, 
Walter and you, with those sly laborers 
Geppo, Giovanni, Cecco, and Poeta, 
To build more solidly your broken dam 
Among the poplars, whence the nightingale 
Inquisitively watched you all day long ? 
I was not of your council in the scheme. 
Or might have saved you silver without end. 
And sighs, too, without number. Art thou gone 
Below the mulberry, where that cold pool 
Urged to devise a warmer, and more fit 
For mighty. swimmers, swimming three abreast? 
Or art thou panting in this summer noon 
Upon the lowest step before the hall, 
Drawing a slice of watermelon, long 
As Cupid's bow, athwart thy wetted lips 
(Like one who plays Pan's pipe), and letting drop 
The sable seeds from all their separate cells. 
And leaving bays profound and rocks abrupt, 
Redder than coral round Calypso's cave ? 

Petrarca. There have been those anciently who would have 
been pleased with such poetry; and perhaps there may be 
again. I am not sorry to see the Muses by the side of child- 
hood, and forming a part of the family. But now tell me about 
the books. 



THE PENTAMERON. 11/ 

Boccaccio. Resolving to lay aside the more valuable of those I 
had collected or transcribed, and to place them under the guar- 
dianship of richer men, I locked them up together in the higher 
story of my tower at Certaldo. You remember the old tower ? 

Petrarca. Well do I remember the hearty laugh we had 
together (which stopped us upon the staircase) at the calcula- 
tion we made how much longer you and I, if we continued to 
thrive as we had thriven latterly, should be able to pass within 
its narrow circle. Although I like this little villa much better, 
I would gladly see the place again, and enjoy with you, as we 
did before, the vast expanse of woodlands and mountains and 
maremma, frowning fortresses inexpugnable, and others more 
prodigious for their ruins ; then below them lordly abbeys, 
over-canopied with stately trees, and girded with rich luxuri- 
ance ; and towns that seem approaching them to do them 
honor, and villages nestling close at their sides for sustenance 
and protection. 

Boccaccio. My disorder, if it should keep its promise of 
leaving me at last, will have been preparing me for the accom- 
phshment of such a project. Should I get thinner and thinner 
at this rate, I shall soon be able to mount not only a turret or a 
belfry, but a tube of macaroni,^ while a Neapolitan is suspend- 
ing it for deglutition. 

What I am about to mention, will show you how little you 
can rely on me ! I have preserved the books, as you desired, 
but quite contrary to my resolution ; and no less contrary to it, 
by your desire I shall now preserve the " Decameron." In vain 
had I determined not only to mend in future, but to correct 
the past ; in vain had I prayed most fervently for grace to ac- 
complish it, with a final aspiration to Fiametta that she would 
unite with your beloved Laura, and that, gentle and beatified 
spirits as they are, they would breathe together their purer 
prayers on mine. See what follows. 

Petrarca. Sigh not g,t it. Before we can see all that follows 
from their intercession, we must join them again. But let me 
hear anything in which they are concerned. 

^ This is valuable, since it shows that macaroni (here called pasta) was 
invented in the time of Boccaccio ; so are the letters of Petrarca, which 
inform us equally in regard to spectacles : " Kd octilariiim [occhiali] mihi 
confugiendum esset auxilium." — Domenico Grigi. 



Il8 THE PENTAMERON. 

Boccaccio. I prayed ; and my breast, after some few tears, 
grew calmer. Yet sleep did not ensue matil the break of 
morning, when the dropping of soft rain on the leaves of the 
fig-tree at the window, and the chirping of a little bird to tell 
another there was shelter under them, brought me repose and 
slumber. Scarcely had I closed my eyes, if indeed time can be 
reckoned any more in sleep than in heaven, when my Fiametta 
seemed to have led me into the meadow. You will see it below 
you : turn away that branch, — gently ! gently ! do not break 
it, for the little bird sat there. 

Petrarca. I think, Giovanni, I can divine the place. Al- 
though this fig-tree growing out of the wall between the cellar 
and us is fantastic enough in its branches, yet that other which 
I see yonder, bent down and forced to crawl along the grass by 
the prepotency of the young shapely walnut-tree, is much more 
so. It forms a seat about a cubit above the ground, level and 
long enough for several. 

Boccaccio. Ha ! you fancy it must be a favorite spot with 
me, because of the two strong forked stakes wherewith it is 
propped and supported ! 

Petrarca. Poets know the haunts of poets at first sight ; and 
he who loved Laura — O Laura ! did I say he who loved thee ? 
— hath whisperings where those feet would wander which have 
been restless after Fiametta. 

Boccaccio. It is true, my imagination has often conducted 
her thither ; but here in this chamber she appeared to me more 
visibly in a dream. 

" Thy prayers have been heard, O Giovanni," said she. 

I sprang to embrace her. 

" Do not spill the water ! Ah ! you have spilt a part of it." 

I then observed in her hand a crystal vase. A few drops 
were sparkling on the sides and running down the rim ; a few 
were trickling from the base and from the hand that held it. 

" I must go down to the brook," sai4 she, " and fill it again 
as it was filled before." 

What a moment of agony was this to me ! Could I be certain 
how long might be her absence ? She went ; I was following : 
she made a sign for me to turn back. I disobeyed her only an 
instant ; yet my sense of disobedience, increasing my feeble- 
ness and confusion, made me lose sight of her. In the next 



THE PENTAMERON. II9 

moment she was again at my side with the cup quite full. I 
stood motionless : I feared my breath might shake the water 
over. I looked her in the face for her commands, and to 
see it, — to see it so calm, so beneficent, so beautiful. I was 
forgetting what I had prayed for, when she lowered her head, 
tasted of the cup, and gave it me. I drank, and suddenly 
sprang forth before me many groves and palaces and gardens, 
and their statues and their avenues, and their labyrinths of 
alatemus and bay, and alcoves of citron and watchful loopholes 
in the retirements of impenetrable pomegranate. Farther off, 
just below where the fountain slipped away from its marble hall 
and guardian gods, arose from their beds of moss and drosera 
and darkest grass the sisterhood of oleanders, fond of tantaliz- 
ing with their bosomed flowers and their moist and pouting 
blossoms the little shy rivulet, and of covering its face with all 
the colors of the dawn. My dream expanded and moved for- 
ward. I trod again the dust of Posilipo, soft as the feathers in 
the wings of Sleep. I emerged on Baia ; I crossed her in- 
numerable arches ; I loitered in the breezy sunshine of her 
mole ; I trusted the faithful seclusion of her caverns, the keepers 
of so many secrets ; and I reposed on the buoyancy of her 
tepid sea. Then Naples, and her theatres and her churches, 
her grottoes and dells and forts and promontories, rushed for- 
ward in confusion, now among soft whispers, now among 
sweetest sounds, and subsided and sank and disappeared. Yet 
a memory seemed to come fresh from every one ; each had 
time enough for its tale, for its pleasure, for its reflection, for 
its pang. As I mounted with silent steps the narrow staircase 
of the old palace, how distinctly did I feel against the palm of 
my hand the coldness of that smooth stone-work, and the 
greater of the cramps of iron in it ! 

"Ah, me ! is this forgetting? " cried I anxiously to Fiametta. 

"We must recall these scenes before us," she replied; 
" such is the punishment of them. Let us hope and believe 
that the apparition and the compunction which must follow it 
will be accepted as the full penalty, and that both will pass 
away almost together." 

I feared to lose anything attendant on her presence ; I 
feared to approach her forehead with my lips ; I feared to 
touch the lily on its long wavy leaf in her hair, which filled my 



120 THE PENTAMERON. 

whole heart with fragrance. Venerating, adoring, I bowed my 
head at last to kiss her snow-white robe, and trembled at my 
presumption. And yet the effulgence of her countenance viv- 
ified while it chastened me. I loved her — I must not say 
more than ever — better than ever ; it was Fiametta who had 
inhabited the skies. As my hand opened toward her, — 

"Beware!" said she, faintly smiling; "beware, Giovanni! 
Take only the crystal ; take it and drink again." 

"Must all be then forgotten?" said I, sorrowfully. 

" Remember your prayer and mine, Giovanni ? Shall both 
have been granted — oh ! how much worse than in vain? " 

I drank instantly ; I drank largely. How cool my bosom 
grew ! — how could it grow so cool before her ? But it was not 
to remain in its quiescency ; its trials were not yet over. I 
will not, Francesco ! no, I may not commemorate the incidents 
she related to me, nor which of us said, " I blush for having 
\ovt^ first ; " nor which of us replied, " Say /east, say /east, and 
blush again ! " 

The charm of the words (for I felt not the encumbrance of 
the body nor the acuteness of the spirit) seemed to possess 
me wholly. Although the water gave me strength and com- 
fort, and somewhat of celestial pleasure, many tears fell around 
the border of the vase as she held it up before me, exhorting 
me to take courage, and inviting me with more than exhorta- 
tion to accomplish my deliverance. She came nearer, more 
tenderly, more earnestly ; she held the dewy globe with both 
hands, leaning forward, and sighed and shook her head, 
drooping at my pusillanimity. It was only when a ringlet 
had touched the rim, and perhaps the water (for a sunbeam 
on the surface could never have given it such a golden hue), 
that I took courage, clasped it, and exhausted it. Sweet as 
was the water, sweet as was the serenity it gave me, — alas ! 
that also which it moved away from me was sweet ! 

"This time you can trust me alone," said she, and parted 
my hair, and kissed my brow. Again she went toward the 
brook ; again my agitation, my weakness, my doubt, came 
over me ; nor could I see her while she raised the water, nor 
knew I whence she drew it. When she returned, she was 
close to me at once. She smiled : her smile pierced me to the 
bones ; it seemed an angel's. She sprinkled the pure water 



THE PENTAMERON. 121 

on me ; she looked most fondly ; she took my hand ; she suf- 
fered me to press hers to my bosom : but, whether by design I 
cannot tell, she let fall a few drops of the chilly element between. 

"And now, O my beloved ! " said she, "we have consigned 
to the bosom of God our earthly joys and sorrows. The joys 
cannot return, — let not the sorrows. These alone would 
trouMe my repose among the blessed." 

"Trouble thy repose, Fiametta ! Give me the chalice!" 
cried I ; " not a drop will I leave in it, — not a drop." 

" Take it ! " said that soft voice. " O now most dear 
Giovanni, I know thou hast strength enough; and there is 
but little — at the bottom lies our first kiss." 

" Mine, didst thou say, beloved one ? And is that left thee 
still?" 

^^ Mine" said she, pensively; and as she abased her head, 
the broad leaf of the lily hid her brow and her eyes ; the light 
of heaven shone through the flower. 

" O Fiametta ! Fiametta ! " cried I in agony, " God is the God 
of mercy ! God is the God of love ! Can I, can I ever — " 

I struck the chalice against my head, unmindful that I held 
it ; the water covered my face and my feet. I started up, not 
yet awake, and I heard the name of Fiametta in the curtains. 

Petrarca. Love, O Giovanni, and life itself, are but dreams 
at best. I do think 

Never so gloriously was Sleep attended 
As with the pageant of that heavenly maid. 

But to dwell on such subjects is sinful. The recollection of 
them, with all their vanities, brings tears into my eyes. 

Boccaccio, And into mine too, — they were so very 
charming. 

Petrarca. Alas, alas ! the time always comes when we 
must regret the enjoyments of our youth. 

Boccaccio. If we have let them pass us. 

Petrarca. I mean our indulgence in them. 

Boccaccio. Francesco, I think you must remember Raffa- 
ellino degli Alfani. 

Petrarca. Was it RafFaellino who lived near San Michele in 
Orto? 

Boccaccio. The same. He was an innocent soul, and fond 



122 THE PENTAMERON. 

of fish. But whenever his friend Sabbatelli sent him a trout 
from Pratohno, he always kept it until next day or the day 
after, just long enough to render it unpalatable. He then 
turned it over in the platter, smelt at it closer, although the 
news of its condition came undeniable from a distance, touched 
it with his forefinger, solicited a testimony from the gills which 
the eyes had contradicted, sighed over it, and sent it for a 
present to somebody else. Were I a lover of trout as Raffael- 
lino was, I think I should have taken an opportunity of enjoying 
it while the pink and crimson were glittering on it. 

Peti'UJ'ca. Trout, yes. 

Boccaccio. And all other fish I could encompass. 

Petrarca. O thou grave mocker ! I did not suspect such 
slyness in thee : proof enough I had almost forgotten thee. 

Boccaccio. Listen ! listen ! I fancied I caught a footstep in 
the passage. Come nearer; bend your head lower, that I 
may whisper a word in your ear. Never let Assunta hear you 
sigh : she is mischievous. She may have been standing at the 
door : not that I believe she would be guilty of any such im- 
propriety, but who knows what girls are capable of ! She has 
no malice, only in laughing ; and a sigh sets her windmill at 
work, van over van, incessantly. 

Petrarca. I should soon check her. I have no notion — 

Boccaccio. After all, she is a good girl, — a trifle of the 
wilful. She must have it that many things are hurtful to me, 
— reading in particular : it makes people so odd. Tina is a 
small matter of the madcap, — in her own particular way, — 
but exceedingly discreet, I do assure you, if they will only leave 
her alone. 

I find I was mistaken, there was nobody. 

Petrarca. A cat, perhaps. 

Boccaccio. No such thing. I order him over to Certaldo 
while the birds are laying and sitting ; and he knows by ex- 
perience, favorite as he is, that it is of no use to come back 
before he is sent for. Since the first impetuosities of youth, 
he has rarely been refractory or disobliging. We have lived 
together now these five years, unless I miscalculate ; and he 
seems to have learned something of my manners, wherein vio- 
lence and enterprise by no means predominate. I have 
watched him looking at a large green lizard; and, their eyes 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 23 

being opposite and near, he has doubted whether it might be 
pleasing to me if he began the attack ; and their tails on a 
sudden have touched one another at the decision. 

Petrarca. Seldom have adverse parties felt the same desire 
of peace at the same moment, and none ever carried it more 
simultaneously and promptly into execution. 

Boccaccio. He enjoys his otium cum dignitate at Certaldo : 
there he is my castellan, and his chase is unlimited in those 
domains. After the doom of relegation is expired, he comes 
hither at midsummer : and then if you could see his joy ! 
His eyes are as deep as a well, and as clear as a fountain ; he 
jerks his tail into the air like a royal sceptre, and waves it like 
the wand of a magician. You would fancy that, as Horace 
with his head, he was about to smite the stars with it. There 
is ne'er such another cat in the parish; and he knows it, a 
rogue ! We have rare repasts together in the bean-and-bacon 
time, although in regard to the bean he sides with the philoso- 
pher of Samos, — but after due examination. In cleanliness he 
is a very nun ; albeit in that quality which lies between cleanli- 
ness and godliness, there is a smack of Fra Biagio about him. 
What is that book in your hand ? 

Petrarca. My breviary. 

Boccaccio. Well, give me mine too, — there, on the little 
table in the corner, under the glass of primroses. We can do 
nothing better. 

Petrarca, What prayer were you looking for ? Let me find it. 

Boccaccio. I don't know how it is : I am scarcely at present 
in a frame of mind for it. We are of one faith : the prayers of 
the one will do for the other, and I am sure that if you omitted 
my name, you would say them all over afresh. I wish you 
could recollect in any book as dreamy a thing to entertain me 
as I have been just repeating. We have had enough of Dante : 
I believe few of his beauties have escaped us, and small faults, 
which we readily pass by, are fitter for small folks, as grubs 
are the proper bait for gudgeons. 

Petrarca. I have had as many dreams as most men. We 
are all made up of them, as the webs of the spider are particles 
of her own vitality. But how infinitely less do we profit by 
them ! I will relate to you, before we separate, one among 
the multitude of mine, as coming the nearest to the poetry of 



124 THE PENTAMERON. 

yours, and as having been not totally useless to me. Often 
have I reflected on it, — sometimes with pensiveness, with sad- 
ness never. 

Boccaccio. Then, Francesco, if you had with you as copious 
a choice of dreams as clustered on the elm-trees where the 
Sibyl led ^neas, this, in preference to the whole swarm of 
them, is the queen dream for me. 

Petrarca. When I was younger I was fond of wandering in 
solitary places, and never was afraid of slumbering in woods 
and grottoes. Among the chief pleasures of my life, and among 
the commonest of my occupations, was the bringing before me 
such heroes and heroines of antiquity, such poets and sages, 
such of the prosperous and the unfortunate, as most interested 
me by their courage, their wisdom, their eloquence, or their 
adventures. Engaging them in the conversation best suited to 
their characters, I knew perfectly their manners, their steps, 
their voices ; and often did I moisten with my tears the models 
I had been forming of the less happy. 

Boccaccio. Great is the privilege of entering into the studies 
of the intellectual ; great is that of conversing with the guides 
of nations, the movers of the mass, the regulators of the unruly 
will, stiff, in its impurity and rust, against the finger of the Al- 
mighty Power that formed it : but give me, Francesco, give me 
rather the creature to sympathize with ; apportion me the suf- 
ferings to assuage. Ah, gentle soul ! thou wilt never send them 
over to another ; they have better hopes from thee. 

Petrarca. We both alike feel the sorrows of those around 
us. He who suppresses or allays them in another breaks 
many thorns off his own, and future years will never harden 
fresh ones. 

My occupation was not always in making the politician talk 
politics, the orator toss his torch among the populace, the 
philosopher run down from philosophy to cover the retreat or 
the advances of his sect, but sometimes in devising how such 
characters must act and discourse on subjects far remote from 
the beaten track of their career. In like manner the philolo- 
gist, and again the dialectician, were not indulged in the review 
and parade of their trained bands, but at times brought forward 
to show in what manner and in what degree external habits 
had influenced the conformation of the internal man. It was 



THE PENTAMERON. 12$ 

far from unprofitable to set passing events before past actors, 
and to record the decisions of those whose interests and pas- 
sions are unconcerned in them. 

Boccaccio. This is surely no easy matter. The thoughts 
are in fact your own, however you distribute them. 

Petrarca. All cannot be my own, if you mean by thoughts 
the opinions and principles I should be the most desirous to 
inculcate. Some favorite ones perhaps may obtrude too promi- 
nently, but otherwise no misbehavior is permitted them ; rep- 
rehension and rebuke are always ready, and the offence is 
punished on the spot. 

Boccaccio. Certainly you thus throw open, to its full extent, 
the range of poetry and invention, which cannot but be very 
limited and sterile, unless where we find displayed much di- 
versity of character as disseminated by nature, much peculiarity 
of sentiment as arising from position, marked with unerring 
skill through every shade and gradation ; and finally and chiefly, 
much intertexture and intensity of passion. You thus convey 
to us more largely and expeditiously the stores of your under- 
standing and imagination than you ever could by sonnets or 
canzonets, or sinewless and sapless allegories. 

But weightier works are less captivating. If you had pub- 
lished any such as you mention, you must have waited for their 
acceptance. Not only the fame of Marcellus, but every other, 

" Crescit occulto velut arbor ecvo ; " 

and that which makes the greatest vernal shoot is apt to make 
the least autumnal. Authors in general who have met celebrity 
at starting, have already had their reward, — always their utmost 
due, and often much beyond it. We cannot hope for both 
celebrity and fame, — supremely fortunate are the few who are 
allowed the liberty of choice between them. We two prefer 
the strength that springs from exercise and toil, acquiring it 
gradually and slowly ; we leave to others the earlier blessing of 
that sleep which follows enjoyment. How many at first sight 
are enthusiastic in their favor ! Of these how large a portion 
come away empty-handed and discontented ! — like idlers who 
visit the seacoast, fill their pockets with pebbles bright from the 
passing wave, and carry them off with rapture. After a short 
examination at home, every streak seems faint and dull, and the 



126 THE PENTAMERON. 

whole contexture coarse, uneven, and gritty : first one is thrown 
away, then another ; and before the week's end the store is gone 
of things so shining and wonderful. 

Petrarca. Allegory, which you named with sonnets and 
canzonets, had few attractions for me, beheving it to be the 
delight in general of idle, frivolous, inexcursive minds, in whose 
mansions there is neither hall nor portal to receive the loftier 
of the passions. A stranger to the affections, she holds a low 
station among the handmaidens of Poetry, being fit for little 
but an apparition in a mask. I had reflected for some time on 
tills subject, when, wearied with the length of my walk over the 
mountains, and finding a soft old molehill covered with gray 
grass by the way-side, I laid my head upon it and slept. I 
cannot tell how long it was before a species of dream or vision 
came over me. 

Two beautiful youths appeared beside me. Each was winged ; 
but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to 
flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard, 
looking at me frequently, said to the other, " He is under my 
guardianship for the present; do not awaken him with that 
feather." 

Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the 
feather on an arrow, and then the arrow itself, — ^ the whole of 
it, even to the point ; although he carried it in such a manner 
that it was difficult at first to discover more than a palm's length 
of it : the rest of the shaft, and the whole of the barb, was be- 
hind his ankles. 

"■ This feather never awakens any one," rephed he, rather 
petulantly; "but it brings more of confident security, and 
more of cherished dreams, than you without me are capable of 
imparting." 

" Be it so ! " answered the gentler, — " none is less inclined 
to quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded 
grievously, call upon me for succor. But so little am I dis- 
posed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for them 
than to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How many 
reproaches on these occasions have been cast upon me for in- 
difference and infidehty ! Nearly as many, and nearly in the 
same terms, as upon you ! " 

" Odd enough that we, O Sleep ! should be thought so alike ! " 



THE PENTAMERON. 12/ 

said Love, contemptuously. " Yonder is he who bears a nearer 
resemblance to you : the dullest have observed it." 

I fancied I turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and 
saw at a distance the figure he designated. Meanwhile the 
contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in assert- 
ing his power or his benefits ; Love recapitulated them, but only 
that he might assert his own above them. Suddenly he called 
on me to decide, and to choose my patron. Under the influence 
first of the one, then of the other, I sprang from repose to rap- 
ture, I alighted from rapture on repose, — and knew not which 
was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and declared he 
would cross me throughout the whole of my existence. What- 
ever I might on other occasions have thought of his veracity, I 
now felt too surely the conviction that he would keep his word. 
At last, before the close of the altercation, the third Genius had 
advanced and stood near us. I cannot tell how I knew him, 
but I knew him to be the Genius of Death. Breathless as I 
was at beholding him, I soon became familiar with his features. 
First they seemed only calm, presently they grew contemplative, 
and lastly beautiful : those of the Graces themselves are less 
regular, less harmonious, less composed. Love glanced at him 
unsteadily, with a countenance in which there was somewhat 
of anxiety, somewhat of disdain ; and cried, " Go away ! go 
away ! nothing that thou touchest lives ! " 

" Say rather, child ! " replied the advancing form, and ad- 
vancing grew loftier and statelier, — " say rather that nothing 
of beautiful or of glorious Uves its own true life until my wing 
hath passed over it." 

Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger 
the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head, but replied not. Al- 
though he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him 
less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. The milder and 
calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I took courage to 
contemplate him, regarded me with more and more compla- 
cency. He held neither flower nor arrow, as the others did ; 
but throwing back the clusters of dark curls that overshadowed 
his countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and be- 
nignly. I shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed 
to love him. He smiled, not without an expression of pity, at 
perceiving my diffidence, my timidity, — for I remembered how 



128 THE PENTAMERON. 

soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. 
By degrees I became ashamed of my ingratitude ; and turning 
my face away, I held out my arms and felt my neck within his. 
Composure strewed and allayed all the throbbings of my 
bosom ; the coolness of freshest morning breathed around ; the 
heavens seemed to open above me ; while the beautiful cheek 
of my deliverer rested on my head. I would now have looked 
for those others, but knowing my intention by my gesture, he 
said consolatorily, — 

" Sleep is on his way to the Earth, where many are calling 
him ; but it is not to these he hastens, for every call only 
makes him fly farther off. Sedate and grave as he looks, 
he is nearly as capricious and volatile as the more arrogant 
and ferocious one." 

"And Love ! " said I, "whither is he departed? If not too 
late, I would propitiate and appease him." 

" He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and 
pass me," said the Genius, " is unworthy of the name, the 
most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up ! Love is yonder, 
and ready to receive thee." 

I looked ; the earth was under me ; I saw only the clear 
blue sky, and something brighter above it. 



PIEVANO GRIGI TO THE READER. 

Before I proceeded on my mission, I had a final audience 
of Monsignore, in which I asked his counsel whether a paper 
sewed and pasted to the " Interviews," being the substance of 
an intended Confession, might, according to the Decretals, be 
made pubhc. Monsignore took the subject into his considera- 
tion, and assented. Previously to the solution of this question, 
he was graciously pleased to discourse on Boccaccio, and to 
say, " I am happy to think he died a good Catholic, and 
contentedly." 

" No doubt, Monsignore ! " answered I, "for when he was 
on his death-bed, or a little sooner, the most holy man in 
Italy admonished him terribly of his past transgressions, and 
frightened him fairly into paradise." 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 29 

" Pievano," said Monsignore, " it is customary in the fash- 
ionable Uterature of our times to finish a story in two manners. 
The most approved is to knock on the head every soul that 
has been interesting you ; the second is to put the two young- 
est into bed together, promising the same treatment to another 
couple, or more. Our forefathers were equally zealous about 
those they dealt with. Every Pagan turned Christian ; every 
loose woman had bark to grow about her, as thick and as strin- 
gent as the ladies had in Ovid's Metamorphoses ; and the gal- 
lants who had played false with them were driven mad by the 
monks at their death-bed. I neither hope nor believe that 
poor Boccaccio gave way to their importunities, but am happy 
in thinking that his decease was as tranquil as his life was 
inoffensive. He was not exempt from the indiscretions of 
youth ; he allowed his imagination too long a dalhance with 
his passions, but malice was never found among them. Let 
us then, in charity to him and to ourselves, be persuaded that 
such a pest as this mad zealot had no influence over him, — 

Ne turbo il tuono di nebbiosa mente 
Acqua si limpida e ridente.^ 

I cannot but break into verse (although no poet) while I am 
thinking of him. Such men as he would bring over more to 
our good-natured honest old faith again than fifty monks with 
scourges at their shoulders." 

" Ah, Monsignore ! " answered I, " could I but hope to be 
humbly instrumental in leading back the apostate Church to 
our true Catholic, I should be the happiest man alive." 

" God forbid you should be without the hope ! " said Mon- 
signore. " The two chief differences now are, — with ours, that 
we must not eat butcher's meat on a Friday ; with the Angli- 
can, that they must not eat baked meat on a Sunday. Sec- 
ondly, that -we say, ' Come, and be saved ; ' the Anglican says, 
' Go, and be damned.' " 

Since the exposition of Monsignore, the Parliament has 
issued an Act of Grace in regard to eating. One article says, 
" Nobody shall eat on a Sunday roast or baked or other hot 
victuals whatsoever, unless he goes to church in his own car- 

^ Nor did the thunderings of a cloudy mind 
Trouble so limpid and serene a water. 
9 



I30 THE PENTAMERON, 

riage ; if he goes thither in any other than his own, be he halt 
or bUnd, he shall be subject to the penalty of twenty pounds. 
Nobody shall dance on a Sunday, or play music, unless he also 
be able to furnish three eca7'te tables at the least, and sixteen 
wax-lights." 

I write from memory; but if the wording is inexact, the 
sense is accurate. Nothing can be more gratifying to a true 
Catholic than to see the amicable game played by his bishops 
with the Anglican. The Catholic never makes a false move. 
His fish often slips into the red square, marked " Sunday," but 
the shoulder of mutton can never get into its place, marked 
"Friday; " it lies upon the table, and nobody dares touch it. 
Alas ! I am forgetting that this is purely an English game, and 
utterly unknown among us, or indeed in any other country 
under heaven. 

To promote still further the objects of religion, as understood 
in the Universities and the Parliament, it was proposed that 
public prayers should be offered up for rain on every Sabbath- 
day, the more effectually to encompass the provisions of the 
Bill. But this clause was cancelled in the Committee, on the 
examination of a groom, who deposed that a coach-horse of 
his master, the bishop of London, was touched in the wind, 
and might be seriously a sufferer, — " for the bishop," said he, 
" is no better walker than a goose." 

There is, moreover, great and general discontent in the lower 
orders of the clergy that some should be obhged to serve a 
couple of churches, and perhaps a jail or hospital to boot, for 
a stipend of a hundred pounds and even less, while others are 
incumbents of pluralities, doing no duty at all, and receiving 
three or four thousands. It is reported that several of the more 
fortunate are so utterly shameless as to liken the Church to a 
lottery-office, and to declare that unless there were great prizes 
no man in his senses would enter into the service of our Lord. 
I myself have read with my own eyes this declaration ; but I 
hope the signature is a forgery. What is certain is, that the 
emoluments of the bishopric of London are greater than the 
united revenue of twelve cardinals ; that they are amply suffi- 
cient for the board, lodging, and education of three htmdred 
young men destined to the ministry ; and that they might 
relieve from famine, rescue from sin, and save perhaps from 



THE PENTAMERON. I31 

eternal punishment three thousand fellow- creatures yearly. On 
a narrow inspection of one manufacturing town in England, I 
deliver it as my firm opinion that it contains more crime and 
wretchedness than all the four continents of our globe. If 
these enormous masses of wealth had been fairly subdivided 
and carefully expended ; if a more numerous and more effi- 
cient clergy had been appointed, — how very much of sin and 
sorrow had been obviated and allayed ! Ultimately the poor 
will be driven to desperation, there being no check upon them, 
no guardian over them ; and the eyes of the sleeper, it is to 
be feared, will be opened by pincers. In the midst of such 
woes, originating in her iniquities and aggravated by her su- 
pineness, the Church of England, the least reformed Church in 
Christendom and the most opposite to the institutions of the 
State, boasts of being the purest member of the Reformation. 
Shocked at such audacity and impudence, the conscientious 
and pious, not only of her laity but also of her clergy, fall daily 
off from her, and, resigning all hope of parks and palaces, 
embrace the cross. 

Never since the Reformation (so called) have our prospects 
been so bright as at the present day. Our own prelates and 
those of the English Church are equally at work to the same 
effect ) and the Catholic clergy will come into possession of 
their churches with as little change in the temporals as in the 
spirituals. It is the law of the land that the Church cannot 
lose her rights and possessions by lapse of time ; impossible 
then that she should lose it by fraud and fallacy. Although 
the bishops of England, regardless of their vocations and vows, 
have by deceit and falsehood obtained Acts of Parliament, 
under sanction of which they have severed from their sees and 
made over to their families the possessions of the Episcopacy, 
it cannot be questioned that what has been wrongfully alienated 
will be rightfully restored. No time, no trickery, no subterfuge 
can conceal it. The exposure of such thievery in such eminent 
stations (worse and more shameful than any on the Thames or 
in the lowest haunts of villany and prostitution) , and of attempts 
to seize from their poorer brethren a few decimals to fill up a 
deficiency in many thousands, has opened wide the eyes of 
England, Consequently, there are religious men who resort 
from all quarters to the persecuted mother they had so long 



132 THE PENTAMERON. 

abandoned. God at last has made his enemies perform his 
work ; and the EngUsh prelates, not indeed on the stool of re- 
pentance as would befit them, but thrust by the scorner into 
his uneasy chair, are mending with scarlet silk and seaming 
with threads of gold the copes and dalmatics of their worthy 
predecessors. I am overjoyed in declaring to my townsmen 
that the recent demeanor of these prelates, refractory and mu- 
tinous as it has been (in other matters) to the government of 
their patron the king, has ultimately (by joining the malcon- 
tents in abolishing the favorite farce of religious freedom, and 
in forbidding roast-meat and country air on the Sabbath) filled 
up my subscription for the bell of San Vivaldo. 

Salve Regina Cceli ! 

Prete Domenico Grigi. 

London, June 17, 1837. 



HEADS OF CONFESSION; A MONTHFUL. 
Printed and Published Supericyrum Licentid. 

March 14. Being ill at ease, I cried, " Diavolo ! I wish 
that creaking shutter was at thy bedroom, instead of mine, old 
fellow ! " Assuntina would have composed me, showing me 
how wrong it was. Perverse ; and would not acknowledge my 
sinfulness to her. I said she had nothing to do with it, which 
vexed her. 

March 23. Reproved Assuntina, and called her ragazzaccia, 
for asking of Messer Piero Pimpema half the evening's milk of 
his goat. Very wrong in me, it being impossible she should 
have known that Messer Piero owed me four lire since — I 
forget when. 

March 31. It blowing tramontana, I was ruffled ; suspected 
a feather in the minestra ; said the rice was as black as a coal. 
Sad falsehood ! made Assuntina cry. Saracenic doings. 

Recapitulation. Shameful all this month ; I did not believe 
such bad humor was in me. 

Reflection. The Devil, if he cannot have his walk one way, 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 33 

will take it another; never at a fault. Manifold proof; poor 
sinner ! 

April 2. Thought uncharitably of Fra Biagio. The Frate 
took my hand, asking me to confess, reminding me that I had 
not confessed since the 3d of March, although I was so sick 
and tribulated I could hardly stir. Peevish; said, "Confess 
yourself ! I won't ; I am not minded. You will find those not 
far off who — " and then I dipped my head under the cover- 
let, and saw my error. 

April 6. Whispers of Satanasso, pretty clear ! A sprinkling 
of vernal thoughts, much too advanced for the season. About 
three hours before sunset, Francesco came. Forgot my 
prayers ; woke at midnight, recollected, and did not say them. 
Might have told him ; never occurred that, being a canonico, 
he could absolve me ; now gone again these three days, this 
being the fourteenth. Must unload ere heavier-laden. Gratiae 
plena ! have mercy upon me ! 



THE TRANSLATOR'S REMARKS 

ON THE ALLEGED JEALOUSY OF BOCCACCIO AND PETRARCA. 

Among the most heinous crimes that can be committed 
against society is the 

" temerati crimen amici," 

and no other so loosens the bonds by which it is held together. 
Once and only once in my life, I heard it defended by a per- 
son of intellect and integrity. It was the argument of a 
friendly man, who would have invalidated the fact ; it was the 
solicitude of a prompt and dexterous man, holding up his hat 
to cover the shame of genius. I have indeed had evidence of 
some who saw nothing extraordinary or amiss in these filchings 
and twitchings ; but there are persons whose thermometer stands 
higher by many degrees at other points than at honor. There 
are insects on the shoals and sands ot literature, shrimps which 
must be half boiled before they redden ; and there are blushes 



134 THE PENTAMERON. 

(no doubt) in certain men, of which the precious vein lies so 
deep that it could hardly be brought to light by cordage and 
windlass,. Meanwhile their wrathfubiess shows itself at once by 
a plashy and puffy superficies, with an exuberance of coarse 
rough stuff upon it, and is ready to soak our shoes with its 
puddle at the first pressure. 

" Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor " is 
a commandment which the literary cast down from over their 
communion table, to nail against the doors of the commonalty, 
with a fist and forefinger pointing at it. Although the depre- 
ciation of any work is dishonest, the attempt is more infamous 
when committed against a friend. The calumniator on such 
occasions may in some measure err from ignorance, or from 
inadequate information, but nothing can excuse him if he 
speaks contemptuously. It is impossible to believe that such 
writers as Boccaccio and Petrarca could be widely erroneous in 
each other's merits ; no less incredible is it that if they did 
err at all, they would openly avow a disparaging opinion. This 
baseness was reserved for days when the study opens into the 
market-place, when letters are commodities, and authors chap- 
men. Yet even upon their stalls, where an antique vase would 
stand little chance with a noticeable piece of blue-and-white 
crockery, and shepherds and sailors and sunflowers in its cir- 
cumference, it might be heartily and honestly derided, — but 
less probably by the fellow- villager of the vender, with whom 
he had been playing at quoits every day of his life. When an 
ill-natured story is once launched upon the world, there are 
many who are careful that it shall not soon founder. Thus the 
idle and inconsiderate rumor which has floated through ages 
about the mutual jealousy of Boccaccio and Petrarca, finds at 
this day a mooring in all quarters. Never were two men so 
perfectly formed for friendship ; never were two who fulfilled 
so completely that happy destination. True it is, the studious 
and exact Petrarca had not elaborated so entirely to his own 
satisfaction his poem " Africa "as to submit it yet to the in- 
spection of Boccaccio, to whom unquestionably he would have 
been delighted to show it the moment he had finished it. He 
died, and left it incomplete. We have, it must be acknowl- 
edged, the authority of Petrarca himself that he never had read 
the " Decameron " through, even to the last year of his life, 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 35 

when he had been intimate with Boccaccio four-and-twenty 
years. How easy would it have been for him to dissemble this 
fact ! How certainly would any man have dissembled it who 
doubted of his own heart or of his friend's ! I must request the 
liberty of adducing his whole letter, as already translated : — 

" I have only run over your ' Decameron,' and therefore I am 
not capable of forming a true judgment of its merit ; but upon the 
whole it has given me a great deal of pleasure. The freedoms in 
it are excusable^ fro7n haviiig been writte7i in youth, frotn the sub- 
jects it treats of, and from the persons for whojn it was designed. 
Among a great number of gay and witty jokes, there are however 
many grave and serious sentiments. I did as most people do, — 
I paid most attention to the beginning and the end. Your descrip- 
tion of the people in the Plague is very true and pathetic, and the 
touching story of Griseldis has been ever since laid up in ?ny mem- 
ory, that I may relate it in my conversations with my friends. A 
friend of mine at Padua, a man of wit and knowledge, undertook to 
read it aloud ; but he had scarcely got through half of it, when his 
tears prevented him going on. He attempted it a second time ; 
but his sobs and sighs obliged him to desist. Another of ray friends 
determined on the same venture ; and having read it from begin- 
ning to end, without the least alteration of voice or gesture, he said, 
on returning the book, ' It must be owned that this is an affecting 
history, and I should have wept could I have believed it true ; but 
there never was and never will be a woman like Griseldis.' " 

Here was the termination of Petrarca's literary life ; he 
closed it with the last words of this letter, which are, "Adieu, 
my friends I adieu, my correspondence ! " Soon afterward he 
was found dead in his library, with his arm leaning on a book. 
In the whole of this composition, what a carefulness and solici- 
tude to say everything that could gratify his friend ! With what 
ingenuity are those faults not palliated but excused (his own ex- 
pression) which rnust nevertheless have appeared very grievous 
ones to the purity of Petrarca ! 

But why did not Boccaccio send him his " Decameron " long 
before ? Because there never was a more perfect gentleman, a 
man more fearful of giving offence, a man more sensitive to the 
delicacy of friendship, or more deferential to sanctity of char- 
acter. He knew that the lover of Laura could not amuse his 
hours with mischievous or idle passions ; he knew that he rose 
at midnight to repeat his matins, and never intermitted them. 
On what succeeding hour could he venture to seize ; with what 



136 THE PENTAMERON. 

countenance could he charge it with the levities of the world ? 
Perhaps the Recluse of Arqua, the visitor of old Certaldo, read 
at last the "Decameron " only that he might be able the better 
to defend it. And how admirably has the final stroke of his 
indefatigable pen effected the purpose ! Is this the jealous 
rival? Boccaccio received the last testimony of unaltered 
friendship in the month of October, 1373, a few days after the 
writer's death. December was not over when they met in 
heaven : and never were two gentler spirits united there. 

The character of Petrarca shows itself in almost every one of 
his various works, — unsuspicious, generous, ardent in study, in 
liberty, in love, with a self-complacence which in less men would 
be vanity, but arising in him from the general admiration of a no- 
ble presence, from his place in the interior of a heart which no 
other could approach or merit, and from the homage of all who 
held the principalities of Learning in every part of Europe. 

Boccaccio is only reflected in full from a larger mass of com- 
positions ; yet one letter is quite sufficient to display the beauty 
and purity of his mind. It was written from Venice, when 
finding there, not Petrarca whom he expected to find, but Pe- 
trarca's daughter, he describes to the father her modesty, grace, 
and cordiality in his reception. The imagination can form to 
itself nothing more lovely than this picture of the gentle Ermis- 
senda; and Boccaccio's delicacy and gratitude are equally 
affecting. No wonder that Petrarca, in his will, bequeathed to 
his friend a sum the quintuple in amount of that which he be- 
queathed to his only brother, whom however he loved tenderly. 
Such had been, long before their acquaintance, the celebrity of 
Petrarca, such the honors conferred on him v/herever he re- 
sided or appeared, that he never thought of equality or rivalr)^ 
And such was Boccaccio's reverential modesty, that, to the 
very close of his life, he called Petrarca his master. Immeasur- 
able as was his own superiority, he no more thought himself 
the equal of Petrarca than Dante (in whom the superiority 
was almost as great) thought himself Virgil's. These, I be- 
lieve, are the only instances on record where poets have been 
very tenaciously erroneous in the estimate of their own inferi- 
ority. The same observation cannot be made so confidently 
on the decisions of contemporary critics. Indeed, the balance 
in which works of the highest merit are balanced, vibrates long 



THE PENTAMERON. 1 37 

before it is finally adjusted. Even the most judicious men 
have formed injudicious opinions on the living and the recently 
deceased. Bacon and Hooker could not estimate Shakspeare, 
nor could Taylor and Barrow give Milton his just award. 
Cowley and Dryden were preferred to both, by a great ma- 
jority of the learned. Many, although they believe they dis- 
cover in a contemporary the qualities which elevate him 
above the rest, yet hesitate to acknowledge it : part, because 
they are fearful of censure for singularity ; part, because they 
differ from him in politics or religion ; and part, because they 
delight in hiding, like dogs and foxes, what they can at any 
time surreptitiously draw out for their sullen solitary repast. 
Such persons have little delight in the glory of our country, and 
would hear with disapprobation and moroseness that it has pro- 
duced four men so pre-eminently great that no name, modern 
or ancient, excepting Homer, can stand very near the lowest : 
these are, Shakspeare, Bacon, Milton, and Newton. Beneath 
the least of these (if any one can tell which is least) are Dante 
and Aristoteles, who are unquestionably the next.^ Out of 
Greece and England, Dante is the only man of the first order ; 
such he is, with all his imperfections. Less ardent and ener- 
getic, but having no less at command the depths of thought 
and treasures of fancy, — beyond him in variety, animation, and 
interest, beyond him in touches of nature and truth of character, 
— is Boccaccio. Yet he believed his genius was immeasurably 
inferior to Alighieri's ; and it would have surprised and pained 
him to find himself preferred to his friend Petrarca, — which 
indeed did not happen in his lifetime. So difficult is it to 
shake the tenure of long possession, or to believe that a living 
man is as valuable as an old statue, that for five hundred years 
together the critics held Virgil far above his obsequious but 
high-souled scholar, who now has at least the honor of stand- 
ing alone, if not first. Milton and Homer may be placed to- 
gether : on the continent Homer will be seen at the right 
hand ; in England, Milton. Supreme above all, immeasurably 
supreme, stands Shakspeare. I do not think Dante is any 
more the equal of Homer than Hercules is the equal of Apollo. 
Though Hercules may display more muscles, yet Apollo is the 

1 We can speak only of those whose works are extant. Democritus 
and Anaxagoras were perhaps the greatest in discoveiy and invention. 



138 THE PENTAMERON. 

powerfuller without any display of them at all. Both together 
are just equivalent to Milton, shorn of his Sonnets, and of 
his "Allegro" and " Penseroso," — the most delightful of what 
(wanting a better name) we call lytical poems. 

But in the contemplation of these prodigies we must not 
lose the company we entered with. Two contemporaries so 
powerful in interesting our best affections as Giovanni and 
Francesco, never existed before or since. Petrarca was 
honored and beloved by all conditions. He collated with the 
student and investigator, he planted with the husbandman, he 
was the counsellor of kings, the reprover of pontiffs, and the 
pacificator of nations. Boccaccio, who never had occasion 
to sigh for solitude, never sighed in it : there was his station, 
there his studies, there his happiness. In the vivacity and ver- 
satility of imagination, in the narrative, in the descriptive, in 
the playful, in the pathetic, the world never saw his equal until 
the sunrise of our Shakspeare. Ariosto and Spenser may stand 
at great distance from him in the shadowy and unsubstantial ; 
but multiform Man was utterly unknown to them. The human 
heart, through all its foldings, vibrates to Boccaccio. 



CITATION AND EXAMINATION 

OF 

WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, 

EUSEBY TREEN, JOSEPH CARNABY, AND SILAS GOUGH, Clerk, 

BEFORE THE WORSHIPFUL 

SIR THOMAS LUCY, Knight, 

TOUCHING DEER-STEALING, 
ON THE 19th DAY OF SEPTEMBER, IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1582. 



EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



" It was an ancestor of my husband who brought out the famous 
Shakspeare." These words were really spoken, and were repeated 
in conversation as ridiculous. Certainly such was very far from the 
lady's intention ; and who knows to what extent they are true ? 

The frolic of Shakspeare in deer-steahng was the cause of his 
"Hegira;" and his connection with players in London was the 
cause of his writing plays. Had he remained in his native town, 
his ambition had never been excited by the applause of the intellec- 
tual, the popular, and the powerful, which after all was hardly suf- 
ficient to excite it. He wrote from the same motive as he acted, — 
to earn his daily bread. He felt his own powers, but he cared little 
for making them felt by others more than served his wants. 

The malignant may doubt, or pretend to doubt, the authenticity 
of the " Examination" here published. Let us, who are not ma- 
lignant, be cautious of adding anything to the noisome mass of in- 
credulity that surrounds us ; let us avoid the crying sin of our 
age, in which the " Memoirs of a Parish Clerk," edited as they 
were by a pious and learned dignitary of the Estabhshed Church, 
are questioned in regard to their genuineness ; and even the privi- 
leges of Parliament are inadequate to cover from the foulest im- 
putation — the imputation of having exercised his inventive faculties 
— the elegant and accomplished editor of Eugene Aram's apprehen- 
sion, trial, and defence. 

Indeed, there is little of real history excepting in romances. 
Some of these are strictly true to nature ; while histories in general 
give a distorted view of her, and rarely a faithful record either of 
momentous or of common events. 

Examinations taken from the mouth are surely the most trust- 
worthy : whoever doubts it, may be convinced by Ephraim Barnett. 

The Editor is confident he can give no offence to any person who 
may happen to bear the name of Lucy. The family of Sir Thomas 
became extinct nearly half a century ago, and the estates descended 
to the Rev. Mr. John Hammond, of Jesus College, in Oxford, a 



142 EDITORS PREFACE. 

respectable Welsh curate, between whom and him there existed at 
his birth eighteen prior claimants. He took the name of Lucy. 

The reader will form to himself, from this "Examination of 
Shakspeare," a more favorable opinion of Sir Thomas than is left 
upon his mind by the dramatist in the character of Justice Shallow. 
The knight indeed is here exhibited in all his pride of birth and 
station, tn all his pride of theologian and poet. He is led by the 
nose, while he believes that nobody can move him, and shows some 
other weaknesses, which the least attentive observer will discover ; 
but he is not without a little kindness at the bottom of the heart, — 
a heart too contracted to hold much, or to let what it holds ebulliate 
very freely. But, upon the whole, we neither can utterly hate nor 
utterly despise him. Ungainly as he is, 

" Circum praecordia ludit." 

The author of the "Imaginary Conversations" seems, in his 
" Boccaccio and Petrarca," to have taken his idea of Sir Magnus 
from this manuscript. He however has adapted that character to 
the times ; and in Sir Magnus the coward rises to the courageous, 
the unskilful in arms becomes the skilful, and war is to him a teacher 
of humanity. With much superstition, theology never molests him ; 
scholarship and poetry are no affairs of his: he doubts of himself 
and others, and is as suspicious in his ignorance as Sir Thomas is 
confident. 

With these wide diversities there are family features, such as are 
likely to display themselves in diiferent times and circumstances, 
and some so generically prevalent as never to lie quite dormant in 
the breed. In both of them there is parsimony, there is arrogance, 
there is contempt of inferiors, there is abject awe of power, there is 
irresolution, there is imbecility. But Sir Magnus has no knowledge, 
and no respect for it. Sir Thomas would almost go thirty miles, 
even to Oxford, to see a fine specimen of it, although like most of 
those who call themselves the godly, he entertains the most un- 
doubting belief that he is competent to correct the errors of the 
wisest and most practised theologian. 

A part only of the many deficiencies which the reader will dis- 
cover in this book is attributable to the Editor. These however it 
is his duty to account for, and he will do it as briefly as he can. 

The facsimiles (as printers' boys call them, meaning specimens) 
of the handwriting of nearly all the persons introduced might per- 
haps have been procured, had sufficient time been allowed for an- 
other journey into Warwickshire. That of Shakspeare is known 
already in the signature to his will, but deformed by sickness ; that 
of Sir Thomas Lucy is extant at the bottom of a commitment of a 
female vagrant, for having a sucking child in hei arms on the public 
road ; that of Silas Gough is affixed to the register of births and 
marriages, during several years, in the parishes of Hampton Lucy and 



EDITORS PREFACE, I43 

Charlecote, and certifies one death, — Euseby Treen's; surmised 
at least to be his by the letters " E. T." cut on a bench seven inches 
thick, under an old pollard-oak outside the park paling of Charlecote, 
toward the northeast. For this discovery the Editor is indebted 
to a most respectable intelligent farmer in the adjoining parish of 
Wasperton, in which parish Treen's elder brother lies buried. The 
worthy farmer is unwilHng to accept the large portion of fame justly 
due to him for the services he has thus rendered to literature in 
elucidating the history of Shakspeare and his times. In possession 
of another agricultural gentleman there was recently a very curious 
piece of iron, believed by many celebrated antiquaries to have con- 
stituted a part of a knight's breast-plate. It was purchased for two 
hundred pounds by the trustees of the British Museum, among 
whom, the reader will be grieved to hear, it produced dissension 
and coldness ; several of them being of opinion that it was merely 
a gorget, while others were inclined to the belief that it was the 
forepart of a horse-shoe. The Committee of Taste and the Heads 
of the Archaeological Society were consulted. These learned, dis- 
passionate, and benevolent men had the satisfaction of conciliating 
the parties at variance, — each having yielded somewhat and every 
member signing, and affixing his seal to the signature, that, if in- 
deed it be the forepart of a horse-shoe, it was probably Ismael's; 
there being a curved indentation along it, resembling the first letter 
of his name, and there being no certainty or record that he died in 
France, or was left in that country by Sir Magnus. 

The Editor is unable to render adequate thanks to the Rev. 
Stephen Turnover for the gratification he received in his curious 
library by a sight of Joseph Carnaby's name at full-length, in red 
ink, coming from a trumpet in the mouth of an angel. This invalu- 
able document is upon an engraving in a frontispiece to the New 
Testament. But since unhappily he could procure no signature of 
Hannah Hathaway, nor of her mother, and only a questionable one 
of Mr. John Shakspeare, the poet's father, ■ — there being two, in 
two very different hands,— both he and the publisher were of 
opinion that the graphical part of the volume would be justly cen- 
sured as extremely incomplete, and that what we could give would 
only raise inextinguishable regret for that which we could not. On 
this reflection all have been omitted. 

The Editor is unwilling to affix any mark of disapprobation on 
the very clever engraver who undertook the sorrel mare ; but as in 
the memorable words of that ingenious gentleman from Ireland, 
■whose polished and elaborate epigrams raised him justly to the rank 
of prime minister, — 

" White was not so very white," — 

in like manner it appeared to nearly all the artists he consulted that 
the sorrel mare was not so sorrel in print. 



144 EDITORS PREFACE. 

There is another and a graver reason why the Editor was induced 
to reject the contribution of his friend the engraver : and this is, a 
neglect of the late improvements in his art, he having, unadvisedly 
or thoughtlessly, drawn in the old-fashioned manner lines at the 
two sides and at the top and bottom of his print, confining it to such 
limits as paintings are confined in by their frames. Our spirited 
engravers, it is well known, disdain this thraldom, and not only 
give unbounded space to their scenery, but also melt their figures 
in the air, — so advantageously, that, for the most part, they ap- 
proach the condition of cherubs. This is the true aerial perspec- 
tive, so httle understood heretofore. Trees, castles, rivers, volca- 
noes, oceans, float together in absolute vacancy; the solid earth 
is represented, what we know it actually is, buoyant as a bubble, 
so that no wonder if every horse is endued with all the privileges 
of Pegasus, save and except our sorrel. Malicious carpers, insen- 
sible or invidious of England's glory, deny her in this beautiful 
practice the merit of invention, assigning it to the Chinese in their 
tea-cups and saucers ; but if not absolutely new and ours, it must 
be acknowledged that we have greatly improved and extended the 
invention. 

Such are the reasons why the little volume here laid before the 
public is defective in those decorations which the exalted state of 
literature demands. Something of compensation is supphed by a 
Memorandum of Ephraim Barnett, written upon the inner cover, 
and printed below. 

The Editor, it will be perceived, is but little practised in the ways 
of hterature, much less is he gifted with that prophetic spirit which 
can anticipate the judgment of the public. It may be that he is 
too idle or too apathetic to think anxiously or much about the 
matter; and yet he has been amused, in his earlier days, at watch- 
ing the first appearance of such few books as he believed to be the 
production of some powerful intellect. He has seen people slowly 
rise up to them, like carp in a pond when food is thrown into it; 
some of which carp snatch suddenly at a morsel, and swallow it ; 
others touch it gently with their barb, pass deliberately by, and 
leave it; others wriggle and rub against it more disdainfully; others, 
in sober truth, know not what to make of it, swim round and round 
it, eye it on the sunny side, eye it on the shady, approach it, ques- 
tion it, shoulder it, flap it with the tail, turn it over, look askance at 
it, take a pea-shell or a worm instead of it, and plunge again their 
heads into the comfortable mud. After some seasons the same 
food will suit their stomachs better. 



EDITORS PREFACE. I45 



MEMORANDUM, BY EPHRAIM BARNETT. 

Studying the benefit and advantage of such as by God's bless- 
ing may come after me, and wiUing to show them the highways of 
Providence from the narrow by-lane in the which it hath been His 
pleasure to station me, and being now advanced full-nigh unto the 
close and consummation of my earthly pilgrimage, methinks I can- 
not do better at this juncture than preserve the looser and lesser 
records of those who have gone before me in the same, with higher 
heel-piece to their shoe and more polished scallop to their beaver. 
And here, beforehand, let us think gravely and religiously on what 
the Pagans in their blindness did call Fortune, making a goddess of 
her, and saying, — 

" One body she lifts up so high 
And suddenly, she makes him cry 
And scream as any wench might do 
That you should play the rogue unto : 
And the same Lady Light sees good 
To drop another in the mud, 
Against all hope and likelihood." ' 

My kinsman, Jacob Eldridge, having been taught by me, among 
other useful things, to write a fair and laudable hand, was recom- 
mended and introduced by our worthy townsman. Master Thomas 
Greene, unto the Earl of Essex, to keep his accounts, and to write 
down sundry matters from his dictation, even letters occasionally. 
For although our nobility, very unlike the French, not only can 
read and write, but often do, yet some from generosity and some 
from dignity keep in their employment what those who are illiterate, 
and would not appear so, call an " amanuensis," thereby meaning 
secretary or scribe. Now, it happened that our gracious Queen's 
Highness was desirous of knowing all that could be known about 
the rebellion in Ireland ; and hearing but little truth from her nobility 
in that country, — even the fathers in God inclining more unto court 
favor than will be readily believed of spiritual lords, and inoulding 
their ductile depositions on the pasteboard of their temporal mis- 
tress until she was angry at seeing the lawn -sleeves so besmirched 
from wrist to elbow, — she herself did say unto the Earl of Essex : 
" Essex, these fellows lie ! I am inclined to unfrock and scourge 
them sorely for their leasings. Of that anon. Find out, if you 
can, somebody who hath his wit and his honesty about him at the 
same time. I know that when one of these panniers is full the 

1 The Editor has been unable to discover who was the author of this very free 
translation of an Ode in Horace. He is certainly happy in his amplification of the 
stridore acuta. May it not be surmised that he was some favorite scholar of 
Ephraim Barnett? 

10 



146 editor's preface. 

other is apt to be empty, and that men walk crookedly for want of 
balance. No matter, we must search and find. Persuade — thou 
canst persuade, Essex ! — say anything ; do anything. We must 
talk gold and give iron. Dost understand me ? " 

The earl did kiss the jewels upon the dread fingers, for only the 
last joint of each is visible, — and surely no mortal was ever so 
fool-hardy as to take such a monstrous liberty as touching it, except 
in spirit ! On the next day there did arrive many fugitives from 
Ireland ; and among the rest was Master Edmund Spenser, known 
even in those parts for his rich vein of poetry, in which he is de- 
clared by our best judges to excel the noblest of the ancients, and 
to leave all the moderns at his feet. Whether he notified his ar- 
rival unto the earl, or whether fame brought the notice thereof unto 
his lordship, Jacob knoweth not. But early in the morning did the 
earl send for Jacob, and say unto him : " Eldridge, thou must write 
fairly and clearly out, and in somewhat large letters, and in lines 
somewhat wide apart, all that thou hearest of the conversation I 
shall hold with a gentleman from Ireland. Take this gilt and 
illumined vellum, and albeit the civet make thee sick fifty times, 
write upon it all that passes ! Come not out of the closet until the 
gentleman hath gone homeward. The Queen requireth much ex- 
actness ; and this is equally a man of genius, a man of business, and 
a man of worth. I expect from hinrj not only what is true, but what 
is the most important and necessary to understand rightly and com- 
pletely ; and nobody in existence is more capable of giving me both 
information and advice. Perhaps if he thought another were within 
hearing, he would be offended or over-cautious. His delicacy and 
mine are warranted safe and sound by the observance of those com- 
mands which I am delivering unto thee." 

It happened that no information was given in this conference re- 
lating to the movements or designs of the rebels ; so that Master 
Jacob Eldridge was left possessor of the costly vellum, which, now 
Master Spenser is departed this hfe, I keep as a memorial of him, 
albeit oftener than once I have taken pounce-box and pen-knife in 
hand in order to make it a fit and proper vehicle for my own very 
best writing. But I pretermitted it, finding that my hand is no 
longer the hand it was, or rather that the breed of geese is very 
much degenerated, and' that their quills, like men's manners, are 
grown softer and flaccider. Where it will end God only knows ! I 
shall not live to see it. 

Alas, poor Jacob Eldridge ! he little thought that within twelve 
months his glorious master, and the scarcely less glorious poet, 
would be no more 1 In the third week of the following year was 
Master Edmund buried at the charges of the earl ; and within these 
few days hath this lofty nobleman bowed his head under the axe of 
God's displeasure, — such being our gracious Queen's. My kins- 
man Jacob 5ent unto me by the Alcester drover, old Clem Fisher, 



EDITORS PREFACE. 1 4/ 

this among other papers, fearing the wrath of that offended High- 
ness, which allowed not her own sweet disposition to question or 
thwart the will divine. Jacob did likewise tell me in his letter that 
he was sure I should be happy to hear the success of William 
Shakspeare, our townsman. And in truth right glad was I to hear 
of it, being a principal in bringing it about, as those several sheets 
will show which have the broken tile laid upon them to keep them 
down compactly. 

Jacob's words are these : " Now I speak of poets, you will be in 
a maze at hearing that our townsman hath written a power of mat- 
ter for the playhouse. Neither he nor the booksellers think it 
quite good enough to print, but I do assure you, on the faith of a 
Christian, it is not bad ; and there is rare fun in the last thing of 
his about Venus, where a Jew, one Shiloh, is choused out of his 
money and his revenge. However, the best critics and the greatest 
lords find fault, and very justly, in the words, — 

" ' Hath not a Jew eyes ? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, 
senses, affections, passions ? fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed 
and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is .'' ' 

" Surely this is very unchristianlike. Nay, for supposition sake, 
suppose it to be true, was it his business to tell the people so .? 
Was it his duty to ring the crier's bell and cry to them, ' The sorry 
Jews are quite as much men as you are' ? The Church, luckily, 
has let him alone for the present, and the Queen winks upon it. 
The best defence he can make for himself is that it comes from the 
mouth of a Jew, who says many other things as abominable. Master 
Greene may over-rate him; but Master Greene declares that if 
William goes on improving and taking his advice, it will be desper- 
ate hard work in another seven years to find so many as half-a- 
dozen chaps equal to him within the liberties. 

" Master Greene and myself took him with us to see the burial of 
Master Edmund Spenser in Westminster Abbey, on the 19th of 
January last. The halberdmen pushed us back as having no busi- 
ness there. Master Greene told them he belonged to the Queen's 
company of players. William Shakspeare could have said the same, 
but did not. And I, fearing that Master Greene and he might be 
halberded back into the crowd, showed the badge of the Earl of 
Essex. Whereupon did the Serjeant ground his halberd, and say 
unto me, ' That badge commands admittance everywhere : your 
folk likewise may come in.' 

" Master Greene was red-hot angry, and told me he would bring 
him before the council. 

" William smiled, and Master Greene said, ' Why ! would not 
you, if you were in my place ? ' 



148 editor's preface. 

" He replied, ' I am an half inclined to do worse, — to bring him 
before the audience some spare hour.' 

" At the close of the burial service all the poets of the age threw 
their pens into the grave, together with the pieces they had com- 
posed in praise or lamentation of the deceased. William Shakspeare 
was the only poet who abstained from throwing in either pen or 
poem ; at which no one marvelled, he being of low estate, and the 
others not having yet taken him by the hand. Yet many authors 
recognized him, not indeed as author, but as player ; and one civiller 
than the rest, came up unto him triumphantly, his eyes sparkling 
with glee and satisfaction, and said consolatorily, ' In due time, my 
honest friend, you may be admitted to do as much for one of us.' 

"'After such encouragement,' replied our townsman, 'I am 
bound in duty to give you the preference, should I indeed be worthy.' 

" This was the only smart thing he uttered all the remainder of 
the day ; during the whole of it he appeared to be half lost, I know 
not whether in melancholy or in meditation, and soon left us." 

Here endeth all that my kinsman Jacob wrote about William Shaks- 
peare, saving and excepting his excuse for having written so much. 
The rest of his letter was on a matter of wider and weightier import ; 
namely, on the price of Cotteswolde cheese at Evesham Fair. And 
yet, although ingenious men be not among the necessaries of life, 
there is something in them that makes us curious in regard to their 
goings and doings. It were to be wished that some of them had 
attempted to be better accountants ; and others do appear to have 
laid aside the copybook full early in the day. Nevertheless, they 
have their uses and their merits. Master Eldridge's letter is the 
wrapper of much wholesome food for contemplation. Although the 
decease (within so brief a period) of such a poet as Master Spenser 
and such a patron as the earl be unto us appalling, we laud and 
magnify the great Disposer of events no less for his goodness in 
raising the humble than for his power in extinguishing the great. 
And peradventure ye, my heirs and descendants, who shall read 
with due attention what my pen now writeth, will say with the royal 
Psalmist that it inditeth of a good matter when it showeth unto you 
that, whereas it pleased the Queen's Highness to send a great lord 
before the judgment-seat of Heaven, having fitted him by means 
of such earthly instruments as princes in like cases do usually em- 
ploy, and deeming (no doubt) in her princely heart that by such 
shrewd tonsure his head would be best fitted for a crown of glory, 
and thus doing all that she did out of the purest and most con- 
siderate love for him, — it likewise hath pleased her Highness to 
use her right hand as freely as her left, and to raise up a second 
burgess of our town to be one of her company of players. And ye 
also, by industry and loyalty, may cheerfully hope for promotion in 
your callings, and come up (some of you) as nearly to him in the 



EDITOR S PREFACE. I49 

presence of royalty as he cometh up (far off indeed at present) to 
the great and wonderful poet who lies dead among more spices than 
any phoenix, and more quills than any porcupine. If this thought 
may not prick and incitate you, little is to be hoped from any gentle 
admonition or any earnest expostulation of 

Your loving friend and kinsman, 

E. B. 

ANNO jET. SVJE 74, DOM. 1 599, 

DECEMB. l6 ; 

GLORIA DP. DF. ET DSS. 

AMOR VERSUS VIRGINEM REGINAM ! 

PROTESTANTICE LOQUOR ET HONESTO SENSU : 

OBTESTOR CONSCIENTIAM MEAM ! 



EXAMINATION, 

ETC. 



About one hour before noontide, the youth WilUam Shak- 
speare, accused of deer-steahng, and apprehended for that 
offence, was brought into the great hall at Charlecote, where, 
having made his obeisance, it was most graciously permitted 
him to stand. 

The worshipful Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight, seeing him right 
opposite on the farther side of the long table, and fearing no 
disadvantage, did frown upon him with great dignity; then, 
deigning ne'er a word to the culprit, turned he his face toward 
his chaplain Sir Silas Gough, who stood beside him, and said 
unto him most courteously, and unlike unto one who in his own 
right commandeth, " Stand out of the way ! What are those 
two varlets bringing into the room? " 

"The table, sir," replied Master Silas, "upon the which the 
consumption of the venison was perpetrated." 

The youth, WiUiam Shakspeare, did thereupon pray and be- 
seech his lordship most fervently, in this guise : " Oh, sir ! do 
not let him turn the tables against me, who am only a simple 
stripling, and he an old codger." 

But Master Silas did bite his nether lip, and did cry aloud, 
" Look upon those deadly spots ! " 

And his worship did look thereupon most staidly, and did 
say in the ear of Master Silas, but in such wise that it reached 
even unto mine, " Good honest chandlery, methinks ! " 

" God grant it may turn out so ! " ejaculated Master Silas. 

The youth, hearing these words, said unto him, " I fear, 
Master Silas, gentry like you often pray God to grant what he 
would rather not ; and now and then what you would rather 
not." 



152 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Silas was wroth at this rudeness of speech about God in 
the face of a preacher, and said, reprovingly, " Out upon thy 
foul mouth, knave ! upon which lie slaughter and venison." 

Whereupon did William Shakspeare sit mute awhile, and 
discomfited ; then turning toward Sir Thomas, and looking and 
speaking as one submiss and contrite, he thus appealed unto 
him, " Worshipful sir ! were there any signs of Venison on my 
mouth. Master Silas could not for his life cry out upon it, nor 
help kissing it as 't were a wench's." 

Sir Thomas looked upon him with most lordly gravity and 
wisdom, and said unto him in a voice that might have come 
from the bench, "Youth, thou speakest irreverently;" and 
then unto Master Silas, " Silas, to the business on hand. Taste 
the fat upon yon boor's table, which the constable hath brought 
hither, good Master Silas ! And declare upon oath, being sworn 
in my presence, first, whether said fat do proceed of venison ; 
secondly, whether said venison be of buck or doe." 

Whereupon the Reverend Sir Silas did go incontinently, and 
did bend forward his head, shoulders, and body, and did sever- 
ally taste four white solid substances upon an oaken board ; 
said board being about two yards long, and one yard four 
inches wide, found in, and brought thither from, the tenement 
or messuage of Andrew Haggit, who hath absconded. Of these 
four white solid substances, two were somewhat larger than a 
groat, and thicker ; one about the size of King Henry VIII. 's 
shilling, when our late sovereign lord of blessed memory was 
toward the lustiest ; and the other, that is to say the middle- 
most, did resemble in some sort a mushroom, not over fresh, 
turned upward on its stalk. 

" And what sayest thou. Master Silas? " quoth the knight. 

In reply whereunto Sir Silas thus averred : — 



" Venison ! o' my conscience ! 
Buck ! or burn me alive ! 



The three splashes in the circumference are verily and indeed 
venison ; buck, moreover, and Charlecote buck, upon my 
oath ! " 

Then, carefully tasting the protuberance in the centre, he 
spat it out crying, " Pho ! pho ! villain ! villain ! " and shaking 
his fist at the culprit. 

\ 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 53 

Whereat the said culprit smiled and winked, and said 
off-hand, " Save thy spittle, Master Silas ! It would supply a 
gaudy mess to the hungriest litter; but it would turn them 
from whelps into wolvets. 'T is pity to throw the best of thee 
away. Nothing comes out of thy mouth that is not savory and 
solid, bating thy wit, thy sermons, and thy promises." 

It was my duty to write down the very words, irreverent as 
they are, being so commanded. More of the like, it is to be 
feared, would have ensued, but that Sir Thomas did check 
him, saying shrewdly, " Young man, I perceive that if I do 
not stop thee in thy courses, thy name being involved in thy 
company's may one day or other reach across the county ; and 
folks may handle it and turn it about as it deserveth, from 
Coleshill to Nuneaton, from Bromwicham to Brownsover. And 
who knoweth but that, years after thy death, the very house 
wherein thou wert born may be pointed at and commented on 
by knots of people, gentle and simple ? What a shame for an 
honest man's son ! Thanks to me, who consider of measures 
to prevent it ! Posterity shall laud and glorify me for plucking 
thee clean out of her head, and for picking up timely a ticklish 
skittle, that might overthrow with it a power of others just as 
light. I will rid the hundred of thee with God's blessing ! nay, 
the whole shire ! We will have none such in our county ; we 
justices are agreed upon it, and we will keep our word now 
and forever more. Woe betide any that resembles thee in any 
part of him ! " 

Whereunto Sir Silas added, "We will dog him and worry 
him and haunt him and bedevil him ; and if ever he hear a 
comfortable word, it shall be in a language very different from 
his own." 

"As different as thine is from a Christian's," said the 
youth. 

" Boy, thou art slow of apprehension," said Sir Thomas, with 
much gravity, and taking up the cue did rejoin : " Master 
Silas would impress upon thy ductile and tender mind the 
danger of evil doing ; that we, — in other words, that justice is 
resolved to follow him up, even beyond his country, where he 
shall hear nothing better than the Italian or the Spanish or 
the black language, or the language of Turk or Troubadour, or 
Tartar or Mongol. And forsooth, for this gentle and indirect 



154 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

reproof, a gentleman in priest's orders is told by a stripling that 
he lacketh Christianity ! Who then shall give it? " 

Shakspeare. Who, indeed, when the founder of the feast 
leaveth an invited guest so empty? Yea, sir, the guest was 
invited, and the board was spread. The fruits that lay upon it 
be there still, and fresh as ever ; and the bread of life in those 
capacious canisters is unconsumed and unbroken. 

Sir Silas {^aside) . The knave maketh me hungry with his 
mischievous similitudes. 

Sir Thomas. Thou hast aggravated thy offence, Will Shak- 
speare ! Irreverent caitiff ! is this a discourse for my chaplain 
and clerk? Can he or the worthy scribe Ephraim [his wor- 
ship was pleased to call me worthy] write down such words as 
those, about litter and wolvets, for the perusal and meditation 
of the grand jury? If the whole corporation of Stratford had 
not unanimously given it against thee, still his tongue would 
catch thee, as the evet catcheth a gnat. Know, sirrah, the 
reverend Sir Silas, albeit ill appointed for riding, and not over 
fond of it, goeth to every house wherein is a venison feast for 
thirty miles round. Not a buck's hoof on any stable-door but 
it awakeneth his recollections like a red letter. 

— This wholesome reproof did bring the youth back again 
to his right senses ; and then said he, with contrition and with 
a wisdom beyond his years, and little to be expected from one 
who had spoken just before so unadvisedly and rashly, "Well do 
I know it, your worship ! And verily do I believe that a bone 
of one, being shovelled among the soil upon his coffin, would 
forthwith quicken ^ him. Sooth to say, there is ne'er a buck- 
hound in the county but he treateth him as a godchild, patting 
him on the head, soothing his velvety ear between thumb and 
forefinger, ejecting tick from tenement, calling him ' fine fel- 
low,' ' noble lad,' and giving him his blessing, as one dearer to 
him than a king's death to a debtor,^ or a bastard to a dad 
of eighty. This is the only kindness I ever heard of Master 
Silas toward his fellow-creatures. Never hold me unjust. Sir 
Knight, to Master Silas. Could I learn other good of him, I 
would freely say it ; for we do good by speaking it, and none 

1 " Quicken," bring to life. 

2 Debtors were often let out of prison at the coronation of a new king, 
but creditors never paid by him. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I55 

is easier. Even bad men are not bad men while they praise 
the just. Their first step backward is more troublesome and 
wrenching to them than the first forward." 

"In God's name, where did he gather all this?" whispered 
his worship to the chaplain, by whose side I was sitting. 
"Why, he talks like a man of forty-seven or more ! " 

" I doubt his sincerity, sir ! " replied the chaplain. " His 
words are fairer now — Devil choke him for them !" inter- 
jected he in an undervoice — " and almost book-worthy ; but 
out of place. What the scurvy cur yelped against me, I for- 
give him as a Christian. Murrain upon such varlet vermin ! 
It is but of late years that dignities have come to be reviled ; 
the other parts of the gospel were broken long before, — 
this was left us ; and now this likewise is to be kicked 
out of doors, amid the mutterings of such moon- calves as 
him yonder." 

" Too true, Silas," said the knight, sighing deeply. " Things 
are not as they were in our glorious wars of York and Lancaster. 
The knaves were thinned then, — two or three crops a year of 
that rank squitch-grass which it has become the fashion of late 
to call the people. There was some difference then between 
buff doublets and iron mail, and the rogues felt it. Well-a- 
day ! we must bear what God willeth, and never repine, al- 
though it gives a man the heart-ache. We are bound in duty 
to keep these things for the closet, and to tell God of them 
only when we call upon his holy name, and have him quite by 
ourselves." 

Sir Silas looked discontented and impatient, and said snap- 
pishly, " Cast we off here, or we shall be at fault. Start him, 
sir ! prythee, start him ! " 

Again his worship, Sir Thomas, did look gravely and grandly, 
and taking a scrap of paper out of the Holy Book then lying 
before him, did read distinctly these words : " Providence hath 
sent Master Silas back hither this morning to confound thee in 
thy guilt." 

Again, with all the courage and composure of an innocent 
man, and indeed with more than what an innocent man ought 
to possess in the presence of a magistrate, the youngster said, 
pointing toward Master Silas, " The first moment he ventureth 
to lift up his visage from the table, hath Providence marked 



156 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

him miraculously. I have heard of black malice. How many 
of our words have more in them than we think of ! Give a 
countryman a plough of silver, and he will plough with it all 
the season, and never know its substance. 'T is thus with our 
daily speech. What riches lie hidden in the vulgar tongue of 
the poorest and most ignorant ! What flowers of Paradise lie 
under our feet, with their beauties and parts undistinguished 
and undiscerned, from having been daily trodden on ! Oh, 
sir, look you, — but let me cover my eyes ! — look at his lips ! 
Gracious Heaven ! they were not thus when he entered : they 
are blacker now than Harry Tewe's bull-bitch's ! " 

Master Silas did lift up his eyes in astonishment and wrath ; 
and his worship Sir Thomas did open his wider and wider, and 
cried by fits and starts, " Gramercy ! true enough ! nay, afore 
God, too true by half ! I never saw the like ! Who would be- 
lieve it? I wish I were fairly rid of this examination, — my 
hands washed clean thereof ! Another time ! anon ! We have 
our quarterly sessions ! We are many together ; at present I 
remand — " 

And now, indeed, unless Sir Silas had taken his worship by 
the sleeve, he would mayhap have remanded the lad. But Sir 
Silas, still holding the sleeve and shaking it, said hurriedly, 
" Let me entreat your worship to ponder. WHat black does 
the fellow talk of? My blood and bile rose up against the 
rogue ; but surely I did not turn black in the face, or in the 
mouth,- as the fellow calls it? " 

Whether Master Silas had some suspicion and inkling of the 
cause or not, he rubbed his right hand along his face and lips, 
and looking upon it, cried aloud, " Ho, ho ! is it off? There 
is some upon my finger's end, I find. Now I have it ; ay, there 
it is. That large splash upon the centre of the table is tallow, 
by my salvation ! The profligates sat up until the candle 
burned out, and the last of it ran through the socket upon the 
board. We knew it before. I did convey into my mouth both 
fat and smut ! " 

" Many of your cloth and kidney do that, good Master 
Silas, and make no wry faces about it," quoth the youngster, 
with indiscreet merriment, although short of laughter, as be- 
came him, who had already stepped too far, and reached the 
mire. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 57 

To save paper and time, I shall now, for the most part, write 
only what they all said, not saying that they said it, and just 
copying out in my clearest hand what fell respectively from 
their mouths. 

Sir Silas. I did indeed spit it forth, and emunge my lips, 
as who should not? 

Shakspeare. Would it were so ! 

Sir Silas. "Would it were so ! " in thy teeth, hypocrite ! 

Sir Thomas. And truly I likewise do incline to hope and 
credit it, as thus paraphrased and expounded. 

Shakspeare. Wait until this blessed day next year, sir, at 
the same hour. You shall see it forth again at its due season ; 
it would be no miracle if it lasted. Spittle may cure sore eyes, 
but not blasted mouths and scald consciences. 

Sir Thomas. Why, who taught thee all this? 

— Then turned he leisurely toward Sir Silas, and placing his 
hand outspredden upon the arm of the chaplain, said unto him 
in a low, judicial, hollow voice, " Every word true and solemn ! 
I have heard less wise saws from between black covers." 

Sir Silas was indignant at this under-rating, as he appeared 
to think it, of the Church and its ministry, and answered im- 
patiently, with Christian freedom, "Your worship surely will 
not listen to this wild wizard in his brothel-pulpit ! " 

Shakspeare. Do I live to hear Charlecote Hall called a 
brothel-pulpit ! Alas, then, I have lived too long ! 

Sir Silas. We will try to amend that for thee. 

— William seemed not to hear him, loudly as he spake and 
pointedly unto the youngster, who wiped his eyes, crying, 
" Commit me, sir ! in mercy commit me. Master Ephraim ! 

Master Ephraim ! A guiltless man may feel all the pangs 
of the guilty ! Is it you who are to make out the commit- 
ment? Dispatch ! dispatch ! I am a-weary of my life. If 

1 dared to lie I would plead guilty." 

Sir Thojiias. Heyday ! No wonder. Master Ephraim, thy 
entrails are moved and wamble. Dost weep, lad ? Nay, nay ! 
thou bearest up bravely. Silas, I now find, although the ex- 
ample come before me from humble life, that what my mother 
said was true, — 't was upon my father's demise : " In great 
grief there are few tears." 

Upon which did the youth, Willy Shakspeare, jog himself by 



158 -/ CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

the memory, and repeat these short verses, not wide from the 
same purport : — 

" There are, alas, some depths of woe 
Too vast for tears to overflow." 

Sir Thomas. Let those who are sadly vexed in spirit mind 
that notion, whoever indited it, and be men, I always was ; 
but some little griefs have pinched me woundily. 

— Master Silas grew impatient, for he had ridden hard that 
morning, and had no cushion upon his seat, as Sir Thomas had. 
I have seen in my time that he who is seated on beech-wood 
hath very different thoughts and moralities from him who is 
seated on goose- feathers under doe-skin. But that is neither 
here nor there ; albeit an I die, as I must, my heirs, Judith and 
her boy Elijah, may note it. 

Master Silas, as above, looked sourishly, and cried aloud, 
" The witnesses ! the witnesses ! Testimony ! testimony ! We 
shall now see whose black goes deepest. There is a fork to be 
had that can hold the slipperiest eel, and a finger that can 
strip the slimiest. I cry your worship to the witnesses." 

Sir Thomas. Ay, indeed, we are losing the day ; it wastes 
toward noon, and nothing done. Call the witnesses. How 
are they called by name? Give me the paper. 

— The paper being forthwith delivered ' into his worship's 
hand by the learned clerk, his worship did read aloud the name 
of Euseby Treen. Whereupon did Euseby Treen come forth 
through the great hall-door, which was ajar, and answer most 
audibly, " Your worship ! " 

Straightway did Sir Thomas read aloud, in like form and 
manner, the name of Joseph Carnaby ; and in like manner, as 
aforesaid, did Joseph Carnaby make answer and say, " Your 
worship ! " 

Lastly did Sir Thomas turn the light of his countenance on 
William Shakspeare, saying, " Thou seest these good men de- 
ponents against thee, William Shakspeare." 

And then did Sir Thomas pause. And pending this pause, 
did William Shakspeare look steadfastly in the faces of both ; 
and stroking down his own with the hollow of his hand, from the 
jaw-bone to the chin-point, said unto his honor, — 

" Faith ! it would give me much pleasure, and the neighbor- 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 59 

hood much vantage, to see these two fellows good men. Joseph 
Camaby and Euseby Treen ! Why, your worship, they know 
every hare's form in Luddington-field better than their own 
beds, and as well pretty nigh as any wench's in the parish." 

Then turned he, with jocular scoff, unto Joseph Camaby, 
thus accosting him whom his shirt, being made stiffer than usual 
for the occasion, rubbed and frayed : " Ay, Joseph, smoothen 
and soothe thy collar-piece again and again ! Hark ye, I know 
what smock that was knavishly cut from." 

Master Silas rose up in high choler, and said unto Sir Thomas, 
" Sir, do not listen to that lewd reviler ! I wager ten groats I 
prove him to be wrong in his scent. Joseph Carnaby is right- 
eous and discreet." 

ShaJzspeare. By daylight and before the parson. Bears and 
boars are tame creatures and discreet in the sunshine and after 
dinner. 

Treen. I do know his down-goings and up-risings. 

Shakspeare. The man and his wife are one, saith Holy 
Scripture. 

Treen. A sober-paced and rigid man, if such there be. 
Few keep Lent like unto him. 

Shakspeare. I warrant him, both lent and stolen. 

Sir Tho77ias. Peace, and silence ! Now, Joseph Camaby, 
do thou depose on particulars. 

Carnaby. May it please your worship, I was returning from 
Hampton upon Allhallowmas Eve, between the hours of ten and 
eleven at night, in company with Master Euseby Treen ; and 
when we came to the bottom of Mickle Meadow, we heard 
several men in discourse. I plucked Euseby Treen by the 
doublet, and whispered in his ear, " Euseby ! Euseby ! let us 
slink along in the shadow of the elms and willows." 

Treen. Willows and elm-trees were the words. 

Shakspeare. See, your worship, what discordances ! They 
cannot agree in their own story. 

Sir Silas. The same thing, the same thing, in the main ! 

Shakspeare. By less differences than this estates have been 
lost, hearts broken, and England, our country, filled with home- 
less, helpless, destitute orphans. I protest against it ! 

Sir Silas. Protest, indeed ! He talks as if he were a 
member of the House of Lords. They alone can protest. 



l60 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. Your attorney may object, not protest, before 
the lord judge. Proceed you, Joseph Camaby. 

Carnaby. In the shadow of the willows and elm-trees 
then — 

Shakspeare. No hints, no conspiracies ! Keep to your own 
story, man, and do not borrow his. 

Sir Silas. I overrule the objection. Nothing can be more 
futile and frivolous. 

Shakspeare. So learned a magistrate as your worship will 
surely do me justice by hearing me attentively. I am young ; 
nevertheless, having more than one year written in the office of 
an attorney, and having heard and listened to many discourses 
and questions on law, I cannot but remember the heavy fine in- 
flicted on a gentleman of this county who committed a poor man 
to prison for being in possession of a hare, — it being proved 
that the hare was in his possession, and not he in the hare's. 

Sir Silas. Synonymous term ! synonymous term ! 

Sir Thomas. In what term sayest thou was it? I do not 
remember the case. 

Sir Silas. Mere quibble ! mere equivocation ! Jesuitical ! 
Jesuitical ! 

Shakspeare. It would be Jesuitical, Sir Silas, if it dragged 
the law by its perversions to the side of oppression and cruelty. 
The order of Jesuits, I fear, is as numerous as its tenets are lax 
and comprehensive. I am sorry to see their frocks flounced 
with English serge. 

Sir Silas. I don't understand thee, viper ! 

Sir Thomas. Cease thou, Will Shakspeare ! Know thy 
place ! And do thou, Joseph Garnaby, take up again the thread 
of thy testimony. 

Cai'iiaby. We were still at some distance from the party, 
when on a sudden Euseby hung an — i 

Sir Thomas. As weU write " drew back," Master Ephraim 
and Master Silas ! Be circumspecter in speech, Master Joseph 
Camaby ! I did not look for such rude phrases from that 
starch-warehouse under thy chin. Continue, man ! 

Carnaby. "Euseby," said I in his ear, "what ails thee, 
Euseby?" "I wag no farther," quoth he. "What a number 
of names and voices ! " 

1 The word here omitted is quite illegible. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l6l 

Sir Thomas. Dreadful gang ! a number of names and 
voices ! Had it been any other day in the year but Allhallow- 
mas Eve ! To steal a buck upon such a day ! Well, God may 
pardon even that. Go on, go on ! But the laws of our country 
must have their satisfaction and atonement. Were it upon 
any other day in the calendar less holy, the buck were nothing, 
or next to nothing, saving the law and our conscience and our 
good report. Yet we, her Majesty's justices, must stand in 
the gap, body and soul, against evil-doers. Now do thou, in 
furtherance of this business, give thine aid unto us, Joseph 
Carnaby; remembering that mine eye from this judgment- 
seat, and her Majesty's bright and glorious one overlooking 
the whole realm, and the broader of God above, are upon 
thee. 

— Carnaby did quail a matter at these words about the judg- 
ment-seat and the broad eye, — aptly and gravely delivered by 
him, moreover, who hath to administer truth and righteousness 
in our ancient and venerable laws, and especially at the present 
juncture in those against park-breaking and deer-stealing. But 
finally, nought discomfited, and putting his hand valiantly 
atwixt hip and midriff, so that his elbow well-nigh touched the 
taller pen in the ink-pot, he went on. 

Carnaby. "In the shadow of the vidllows and elm- trees," 
said he, " and get nearer ! " We were still at some distance, 
may be a score of furlongs, from the party — 

Sir Thomas. Thou hast said it already, all save the score 
of furlongs. Hast room for them. Master Silas ? 

Sir Silas. Yea, and would make room for fifty to let the 
fellow swing at his ease. 

Sir Tho?nas. Hast room, Master Ephraim? 

" 'T is done, most worshipful," said I. The learned knight 
did not recollect that I could put fifty furlongs in a needle's 
eye, give me pen fine enough. But far be it from me to vaunt 
of my penmanship, although there be those who do malign it, 
even in my own township and parish ; yet they never have un- 
perched me from my calling, and have had hard work to take 
an idle wench or two from under me on Saturday nights. 

I memorize thus much, not out of any malice or any sore- 
ness about me, but that those of my kindred into whose hands 
it please God these papers do fall hereafter may bear up stoutly 



1 62 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

in such straits : and if they be good at the cudgel, that they, 
looking first at their man, do give it him heartily and unspar- 
ingly, keeping within law. 

Sir Thomas, having overlooked what we had written, and 
meditated awhile thereupon, said unto Joseph : " It appeareth 
by thy testimony that there was a huge and desperate gang of 
them a-foot. Revengeful dogs ! it is difficult to deal with 
them. The laws forbid precipitancy and violence, A dozen or 
two may return and harm me ; not me indeed, but my tenants 
and servants. I would fain act with prudence, and like unto 
him who looketh abroad. He must tie his shoe tightly who 
passeth through mire ; he must step softly who steppeth over 
stones ; he must walk in the fear of the Lord (which, without 
a brag, I do at this present feel upon me) who hopeth to reach 
the end of the straightest road in safety." 

Sir Silas. Tut, tut ! your worship. Her Majesty's deputy 
hath matchlocks and halters at a knight's disposal, or the 
world were topsy-turvy indeed. 

Sir Thomas. My mental ejaculations, and an influx of 
grace thereupon, have shaken and washed from my brain all 
thy last words, good Joseph. Thy companion here, Euseby 
Treen, said unto thee — ay ? 

Carnaby. Said unto me, "What a number of names and 
voices ! And there be but three living men in all ! And look 
again ! Christ deliver us ! all the shadows save one go left- 
ward : that one lieth right upon the river. It seemeth a big 
squat monster, shaking a little, as one ready to spring upon its 
prey." 

Sir Thomas. A dead man in his last agonies, no doubt. 
Your deer-stealer doth boggle at nothing : he hath alway the 
knife in doublet and the Devil at elbow. I wot not of any 
keeper killed or missing. To lose one's deer and keeper too 
were overmuch. Do, in God's merciful name, hand unto me 
a glass of sack, Master Silas ! I wax faintish at the big squat 
man : he hath harmed not only me, but mine. Furthermore, 
the examination is grown so long. 

— Then was the wine delivered by Sir Silas into the hand of 
his worship, who drank it off in a beaker of about half a pint, 
but little to his satisfaction ; for he said shortly afterward : 
" Hast thou poured no water into the sack, good Master Silas ? 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 63 

It seemeth weaker and washier than ordinary, and affordeth 
small comfort unto the breast and stomach." 

Sir Silas. Not I, truly, sir ; and the bottle is a fresh and 
sound one. The cork reported on drawing, as the best diver 
doth on sousing from Warwick bridge into Avon. A rare 
cork ! as bright as the glass bottle, and as smooth as the lips 
of any cow. 

Sir Thomas. My mouth is out of taste this morning ; or 
the same wine, mayhap, hath a different force and flavor in the 
dining-room and among friends. But to business. What 
more? 

Carnaby. " Euseby Treen, what may it be?" said I. "I 
know," quoth he, "but dare not breathe it." 

Sir Thomas. I thought I had taken a glass of wine, verily. 
Attention to my duty as a magistrate is paramount. I mind 
nothing else when that lies before me. Carnaby, I credit thy 
honesty, but doubt thy manhood. Why not breathe it with a 
vengeance ? 

Carnaby. It was Euseby who dared not. 

Sir Thomas. Stand still ; say nothing yet ; mind my orders ; 
fair and softly ; compose thyself. 

— They all stood silent for some time, and looked very com- 
posed, awaiting the commands of the knight. His mind was 
clearly in such a state of devotion that peradventure he might 
not have descended for a while longer to his mundane duties, 
had not Master Silas told him that, under the shadow of his 
wing, their courage had returned, and they were quite com- 
posed again. 

"You may proceed," said the knight. 

Carnaby. Master Treen did take off his cap and wipe his 
forehead. I, for the sake of comforting him in this his heavi- 
ness, placed my hand upon his crown ; and truly I might have 
taken it for a tuft of bents, — the hair on end, the skin immov- 
able as God's earth. 

— Sir Thomas hearing these words, lifted up his hands above 
his own head, and in the loudest voice he had yet uttered did 
he cry, "Wonderful are thy ways in Israel, O Lord ! " 

So saying, the pious knight did strike his knee with the palm 
of his right hand ; and then gave he a sign, bowing his head 
and closing his eyes, by which Master Carnaby did think he 



164 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

signified his pleasure that he should go on deposing, and he 
went on thus : — 

Carnaby. At this moment one of the accomplices cried, 
" Willy, Willy ! prythee stop ! enough in all conscience ! First 
thou divertedst us from our undertaking with thy strange vaga- 
ries, thy Italian girl's nursery sighs, thy pucks and pinchings, 
and thy Windsor whimsies. No kitten upon a bed of marum 
ever played such antics. It was summer and winter, night and 
day with us, within the hour ; and in such religion did we think 
and feel it, we would have broken the man's jaw who gainsaid 
it. We have slept with thee under the oaks in the ancient forest 
of Arden, and we have wakened from our sleep in the tempest 
far at sea.^ Now art thou for frightening us again out of all 
the senses thou hadst given us, with witches and women more 
murderous than they." 

Then followed a deeper voice : " Stouter men and more 
resolute are few ; but thou, my lad, hast words too weighty 
for flesh and bones to bear up against. And who knows but 
these creatures may pop among us at last, as the wolf did, 
sure enough, -ipon him the noisy rogue who so long had been 
crying wolf ! and wolf ! " 

Sir Thomas. Well spoken, for two thieves ; albeit I miss 
the meaning of the most part. Did they prevail with the 
scapegrace, and stop him? 

Carnaby. The last who had spoken did slap him on the 
shoulder, saying, "Jump into the punt, lad, and across!" 
Thereupon did Will Shakspeare jump into said punt, and 
begin to sing a song about a mermaid. 

Shakspeare. Sir, is this credible ? I will be sworn I never 
saw one, and verily do believe that scarcely one in a hundred 
years doth venture so far up the Avon. 

Sir Thomas. There is something in this. Thou mayest 
have sung about one, nevertheless. Young poets take great 
liberties with all female kind ; not that mermaids are such very 
unlawful game for them, and there be songs even about worse 
and staler fish. Mind ye that ! Thou hast written songs and 
hast sung them, and lewd enough they be, God wot ! 

1 By this deposition it would appear that Shakspeare had formed the 
idea, if not the outline, of several plays already, much as he altered them 
no doubt in after-life. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l6$ 

Shakspeare. Pardon me, your worship ; they were not mine 
then. Peradventure the song about the mermaid may have 
been that ancient one which every boy in most parishes has 
been singing for many years, and perhaps his father before 
him ; and somebody was singing it then, mayhap, to keep up 
his courage in the night. 

Sir Thomas. I never heard it. 

Shakspeare. Nobody would dare to sing in the presence 
of your worship unless commanded; not even the mermaid 
herself. 

Sir Thomas. Canst thou sing it? 

Shakspeare. Verily, I can sing nothing. 

Sir Thomas. Canst thou repeat it from memory? 

Shakspeare. It is so long since I have thought about it that 
I may fail in the attempt. 

Sir Thomas. Try, however. 

Shakspeare, — 

The mermaid sat upon the rocks 

All day long, 
Admiring her beauty and combing her locks, 

And singing a mermaid song. 

Sir Thomas. What was it, what was it? I thought as 
much. There thou standest like a woodpecker, chattering 
and chattering, breaking the bark with thy beak, and leaving 
the grub where it was. This is enough to put a saint out of 
patience. 

Shakspeare. The wishes of your worship possess a mys- 
terious influence ! I now remember all : — 

And hear the mermaid's song you may, 

As sure as sure can be, 
If you will but follow the sun all day, 

And souse with him into the sea. 

Sir Thomas. It must be an idle fellow who would take that 
trouble ; besides, unless he nicked the time he might miss the 
monster. There be many who are slow to believe that the 
mermaid singeth. 

Shakspeare. Ah, sir ! not only the mermaid singeth, but 
the merman sweareth, as another old song will convince you. 

Sir Thomas. I would fain be convinced of God's wonders 



1 66 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

in the great deeps, and would lean upon the weakest reed, like 
unto thee, to manifest his glory. Thou mayest convince me. 
Shakspeare, — 

A wonderful story, my lasses and lads, 

Peradventure you 've heard from your grannams or dads, 

Of a merman that came every night to woo 

The spinster of spinsters, our Catherine Crewe. 

But Catherine Crewe 
Is now seventy-two> 
And avers she hath half forgotten 
The truth of the tale, when you ask her about it, 
And says, as if fain to deny it or flout it, 
" Pooh 1 the merman is dead and rotten." 

The merman came up, as the mermen are wont. 
To the top of the water, and then swam upon 't ; 
And Catherine saw him with both her two eyes, — 
A lusty young merman full six feet in size. 

And Catherine was frightened. 

Her scalp-skin it tightened. 
And her head it swam strangely, although on dry land ; 

And the merman made bold 

Eftsoons to lay hold 
( This Catherine well recollects) of her hand. 

But how could a merman, if ever so good, 

Or if ever so clever, be well understood 

By a simple young creature of our flesh and blood > 

Some tell us the merman 
Can only speak German, 
In a voice between grunting and snoring; 
But Catherine says he had learned in the wars 
The language, persuasions, and oaths of our tars, 
And that even his voice was not foreign. 

Yet when she was asked how he managed to hide 
The green fishy tail, coming out of the tide 

For night after night above twenty, 
"You troublesome creatures!" old Catherine replied, 
" hi his pocket : won't that now content ye ? " 

Si'r Thomas. I have my doubts yet. I should have said 
unto her seriously, " Kate, Kate, I am not convinced." There 
may be witchcraft or sortilege in it. I would have made it a 
Star-chamber matter. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 6/ 

Shakspeare. It was one, sir. 

Sir Thomas. And now I am reminded by this silly childish 
song, which after all is not the true mermaid's, thou didst tell 
me, Silas, that the papers found in the lad's pocket were 
intended for poetry. 

Sir Silas. I wish he had missed his aim, sir, in your park, 
as he hath missed it in his poetry. The papers are not worth 
reading ; they do not go against him in the point at issue. 

Sir Thomas. We must see that, they being taken upon his 
person when apprehended. 

Sir Silas. Let Ephraim read them then : it behooveth not 
me, a Master of Arts, to con a whelp's whining. 

Sir Thomas. Do thou read them aloud unto us, good 
Master Ephraim. 

— Whereupon I took the papers, which young Willy had not 
bestowed much pains on; and they posed and puzzled me 
grievously, for they were blotted and scrawled in many places, 
as if somebody had put him out. These likewise I thought fit, 
after long consideration, to write better, and preserve, great as 
the loss of time is when men of business take in hand such un- 
seemly matters. However, they are decenter than most, and 
not without their moral. For example : — 

TO THE OWLET. 

Who, O thou sapient saintly bird ! 
Thy shouted warnings ever heard 

Unbleached by fear ? 
The blue-faced blubbering imp, who steals 
Yon turnips, thinks thee at his heels, 

Afar or near. 

The brawnier churl who brags at times 
To front and top the rankest crimes, — 

To paunch a deer, 
Quarter a priest, or squeeze a wench, — 
Scuds from thee, clammy as a tench, 

He knows not where. 

For this the righteous Lord of all 
Consigns to thee the castle-wall, 

When, many a year, 
Closed in the chancel-vault, are eyes 
Rainy or sunny at the sighs 

Of knight or peer. 



1 68 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas, when I had ended, said unto me, " No harm 
herein ; but are they over? " 

I rephed, "Yea, sir ! " 

"I miss the posy,^'' quoth he; "there is usually a lump of 
sugar, or a smack thereof, at the bottom of the glass. They 
who are inexperienced in poetry do write it as boys do their 
copies in the copy-book, — without a flourish at the finis. It 
is only the master who can do this befittingly." 

I bowed unto his worship reverentially, thinking of a surety 
he meant me, and returned my best thanks in set language. 
But his worship rebuffed them, and told me graciously that he 
had an eye on another of very different quality ; that the plain 
sense of his discourse might do for me, the subtler was certainly 
for himself. He added that in his younger days he had heard 
from a person of great parts, and had since profited by it, that 
ordinary poets are like adders, — the tail blunt and the body 
rough, and the whole reptile cold-blooded and sluggish ; 
whereas we, he subjoined, leap and caracole and curvet, and 
are as warm as velvet and as sleek as satin and as perfumed as 
a Naples fan in every part of us ; and the end of our poems is 
as pointed as a perch's back-fin, and it requires as much nicety 
to pick it up as a needle -^ at nine groats the hundred. 

Then turning toward the culprit, he said mildly unto him, 
"Now, why canst thou not apply thyself unto study? Why 
canst thou not ask advice of thy superiors in rank and wisdom ? 
In a few years, under good disciphne, thou mightest rise from 
the owlet unto the peacock. I know not what pleasant things 
might not come into the youthful head thereupon. " He was 
the bird of Venus,^ goddess of beauty. He flew down (I 
speak as a poet, and not in my quality of knight and Chris- 
tian) with half the stars of heaven upon his tail ; and his long 
blue neck doth verily appear a dainty slice out of the solid 
sky." 

Sir Silas smote me with his elbow, and said in my ear, " He 
wanteth not this stuffing : he beats a pheasant out of the 

1 The greater part of the value of the present work arises from the 
certain information it affords us on the price of needles in the reign of 
Elizabeth. Fine needles in her days were made only at Liege, and some 
few cities in the Netherlands, and may be reckoned among those things 
which were much dearer than they are now. 

2 Mr. Tooke had not yet published his " Pantheon." 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 69 

kitchen, to my mind ; take him only at the pheasant's size, 
and don't (upon your Ufe) overdo him. Never be cast down in 
spirit, nor take it too grievously to heart, if the color be a sus- 
picion of the pinkish : no sign of rawness in that, none what- 
ever. It is as becoming to him as to the salmon ; it is as 
natural to your pea-chick in his best cookery as it is to the 
finest October morning, moist underfoot, when partridge's and 
puss's and reynard's scent hes sweetly." 

Willy Shakspeare in the mean time lifted up his hands above 
his ears half a cubit, and taking breath again, said audibly, al- 
though he willed it to be said unto himself alone, " Oh that 
knights could deign to be our teachers ! Methinks I should 
briefly spring up into heaven, through the very chink out of 
which the peacock took his neck." 

Master Silas, who, like myself and the worshipful knight, did 
overhear him, said angrily, " To spring up into heaven, my lad, 
it would be as well to have at least one foot upon the ground 
to make the spring withal. I doubt whether we shall leave thee 
this vantage." 

" Nay, nay ! thou art hard upon him, Silas ! " said the 
knight. 

I was turning over the other papers taken from the pocket 
of the culprit on his apprehension, and had fixed my eyes on 
one, when Sir Thomas caught them thus occupied, and ex- 
claimed, " Mercy upon us ! have we more? " 

" Your patience, worshipful sir ! " said I ; " must I forward? " 

"Yea, yea," quoth he, resignedly, "we must go through : we 
are pilgrims in this life." 

Then did I read, in a clear voice, the contents of paper the 
second, being as foUoweth : — 

THE maid's lament. 

I loved him not ; and yet now he is gone 

I feel I am alone. 
I checked him while he spoke ; yet could he speak, 

Alas ! I would not check. 
For reasons not to love him once I sought, 

And wearied all my thought 
To vex myself and him : I now would give 

My love, could he but live 
Who lately lived for me ; and when he found 

'T was vain, in holy ground 



170 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEAKE. 

He hid his face amid the shades of death. 

I waste for him my breath 
Who wasted his for me ; but mine returns, 

And this lorn bosom burns 
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep. 

And waldng me to weep 
Tears that had melted his soft heart : for years 

Wept he as bitter tears. 
Merciful God ! " such was his latest prayer, 

" These may she never share ! " 
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold, 

Than daisies in the mould, 
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate, 

His name and life's brief date. 
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be, 

And oh ! pray too for me ! 

Sir Thomas had fallen into a most comfortable and refreshing 
slumber ere this lecture was concluded ; but the pause broke 
it, as there be many who experience after the evening service 
in our parish-church. Howbeit, he had presently all his wits 
about him, and remembered well that he had been carefully 
counting the syllables about the time when I had pierced as 
far as into the middle. 

''Young man," said he to Willy, "thou givest short measure 
in every other sack of the load. Thy uppermost stake is of 
right length; the undermost falleth off, methinks. Master 
Ephraim, canst thou count syllables? I mean no offence. I 
may have counted wrongfully myself, not being bom nor edu- 
cated for an accountant." 

At such order I did count ; and truly the suspicion was as 
just as if he had neither been a knight nor a sleeper. 

"Sad stuff! sad stuff, indeed!" said Master Silas, "and 
smelling of popery and wax-candles." 

"Ay? " said Sir Thomas, " I must sift that." 

" If praying for the dead is not popery," said Master Silas, 
" I know not what the devil is. Let them pray for us, — they 
may know whether it will do us any good ; we need not pray 
for them, — we cannot tell whether it will do them any. I 
call this sound divinity." 

"Are our churchmen all agreed thereupon?" asked Sir 
Thomas. 

"The wisest are," rephed Master Silas. "There are some 
lank rascals who will never agree upon anything but upon 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I /I 

doubting. I would not give ninepence for the best gown upon 
the most thrifty of 'em ; and their fingers are as stiff and hard 
with their pedlery knavish writing, as any bishop's are with 
chalk-stones won honestly from the gout." 

Sir Thomas took the paper up from the table on which I had 
laid it, and said, after a while, "The man may only have 
swooned. I scorn to play the critic, or to ask any one the 
meaning of a word ; but, sirrah — " 

Here he turned in his chair from the side of Master Silas, 
and said unto Willy, " WiUiam Shakspeare, out of this thral- 
dom in regard to popery I hope, by God's blessing, to deliver 
thee. If ever thou repeatest the said verses, knowing the man 
to be to all intents and purposes a dead man, prythee read the 
censurable line as thus corrected, — 

Pray for our Virgin Queen, gentles ! whoe'er you be, — 

although it is not quite the thing that another should impinge 
so closely on her skirts. By this improvement, of me sug- 
gested, thou mayest make some amends, a syllable or two, for 
the many that are weighed in the balance and are found 
wanting." 

Then, turning unto me, as being conversant by my profes- 
sion in such matters, and the same being not very worthy of 
learned and staid clerks the like of Master Silas, he said, '•' Of 
all the youths that did ever write in verse, this one verily is he 
who hath the fewest flowers and devices. But it would be loss 
of time to form a border in the fashion of a kingly crown, 
or a dragon, or a Turk on horseback, out of buttercups and 
dandelions. Master Ephraim, look at these badgers, with a 
long leg on one quarter and a short leg on the other ! The 
wench herself might well and truly have said all that matter 
without the poet, bating the rhymes and metre. Among the 
girls in the country there are many such shilly-shallys, who give 
themselves sore eyes and sharp eye-water ; I would cure them 
rod in hand." 

Whereupon did William Shakspeare say, with great humility, 
" So would I, may it please your worship, an they would 
let me." 

" Incorrigible sluts ! Out upon 'em ! and thou art no better 
than they are," quoth the knight. 



1/2 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Master Silas cried aloud, " No better, marry ! they at the 
worst are but carted and whipped for the edification of the 
market-folks.-^ Not a squire or parson in the county round 
but comes in his best to see a man hanged." 

"The edification then is higher by a deal," said William, 
very composedly. 

" Troth ! is it," replied Master Silas. " The most poisonous 
reptile has the richest jewel in his head : thou shalt share the 
richest gift bestowed upon royalty, and shalt cure the king's 
evil." 2 

" It is more tractable, then, than the Church's," quoth 
William ; and turning his face toward the chair he made an 
obeisance to Sir Thomas, saying, " Sir, the more submissive 
my behavior is, the more vehem,ent and boisterous is Master 
Silas. My gentlest words serve only to carry him toward 
the contrary quarter, as the south wind bloweth a ship 
northward." 

"Youth," said Sir Thomas, smiling most benignly, "I find, 
and well indeed might I have surmised, thy utter ignorance of 
winds, equinoxes, and tides. Consider now a little ! With 
what propriety can a wind be called a south wind if it bloweth 
a vessel to the north ? Would it be a south wind that blew it 
from this hall into Warwick market-place? " 

" It would be a strong one," said Master Silas unto me, point- 
ing his remark, as witty men are wont, with the elbow-pan. 

But Sir Thomas, who waited for an answer, and received 
none, continued, " Would a man be called a good man who 
tended and pushed on toward evil? " 

Shakspeare. I stand corrected. I could sail to Cathay or 
Tartary ^ with half the nautical knowledge I have acquired in 
this glorious hall. The Devil impelhng a mortal to wrong 
courses is thereby known to be the Devil. He, on the con- 
trary, who exciteth to good is no devil, but an angel of light, 
or under the guidance of one. The Devil driveth unto his 
own home ; so doth the south wind ; so doth the north wind. 

^ This was really the case within our memory. 

2 It was formerly thought, and perhaps is thought still, that the hand 
of a man recently hanged being rubbed on the tumor of the king's evil 
was able to cure it. The crown and the gallows divided the glory of the 
sovereign remedy. 

2 And yet he never did sail any farther than into Bohemia. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/3 

Alas, alas ! we possess not the mastery over our own weak 
minds when a higher spirit standeth nigh and draweth us 
within his influence. 

Sir Thomas. Those thy words are well enough ; very well, 
very good, wise, discreet, judicious beyond thy years. But 
then that sailing comes in an awkward ugly way across me ; 
that Cathay, that Tartarus ! Have a care ! Do thou noth- 
ing rashly. Mind ! an thou stealeth my pvmt for the pur- 
pose, I send the constable after thee or e'er thou art half 
way over. 

Shakspeare. He would make a stock-fish of me an he 
caught me. It is hard sailing out of his straits, although they 
be carefully laid do\vn in most parishes, and may have taken 
them from actual survey. 

Sir Silas. Sir, we have bestowed on him already well-nigh 
a good hour of our time. 

— Sir Thomas, who was always fond of giving admonition 
and reproof to the ignorant and erring, and who had found the 
seeds (little mustard-seeds, 'tis true, and never likely to arise 
into the great mustard-tree of the Gospel) in the poor lad 
Willy, did let his heart soften a whit tenderer and kindlier than 
Master Silas did, and said unto Master Silas, " A good hour of 
our time ! Yea, Silas, and thou wouldst give him eternity I " 

"What, sir, would you let him go?" said Master Silas. 
" Presently we shall have neither deer nor dog, neither hare 
nor coney, neither swan nor heron ; every carp from pool, every 
bream from brook, will be groped for. The marble monu- 
ments in the church will no longer protect the leaden coffins ; 
and if there be any ring of gold on the finger of knight or 
dame, it will be torn away with as little ruth and ceremony as 
the ring from a butchered sow's snout." 

" Awful words, blaster Silas," quoth the knight, musing ; " but 
thou mistakest my intentions. I let him not go ; howbeit, at 
worst I would only mark him in the ear, and turn him up again 
after this warning, peradventure with a few stripes to boot 
athwart the shoulders, in order to make them shrug a little, 
and shake off the burden of idleness." 

Now I, ha\dng seen, I dare not say the innocence, but the 
innocent and simple manner of Willy, and pitying his tender 
years, and having an inkling that he was a lad, poor Willy, 



174 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

whom God had endowed with some parts, and into whose 
breast he had instilled that milk of loving-kindness by which 
alone we can be like unto those little children of whom is the 
household and kingdom of our Lord, I was moved, yea, even 
unto tears. And now, to bring gentler thoughts into the 
hearts of Master Silas and Sir Thomas, who in his wisdom 
deemed it a light punishment to slit an ear or two, or in- 
flict a wiry scourging, I did remind his worship that another 
paper was yet unread, at least to them, although I had been 
perusing it. 

This was much pleasanter than the former two, and over- 
flowing with the praises of the worthy knight and his gracious 
lady ; and having an echo to it in another voice, I did hope 
thereby to disarm their just wrath and indignation. It was 
thus couched : — 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

Jesu ! what lofty elms are here ! 
Let me look through them at the clear 
Deep sky above, and bless my star 
That such a worthy knight's they are ! 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

Innocent creatures 1 how those deer 
Trot merrily, and romp and rear ! 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

The glorious knight who walks beside 
His most majestic lady bride, 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

Under these branches spreading wide, 

FIRST SHEPHERD. ~ 

Carries about so many cares 

Touching his ancestors and heirs, 

That came from Athens and from Rome, 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

As many of them as are come, 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

Nought else the smallest lodge can find 
In the vast manors of his mind ; 
Envying not Solomon his wit, 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/5 



SECOND SHEPHERD. 

No, nor his women, — not a bit; 
Being well-built and well-behaved 
As Solomon, I trow, or David. 

FIRST SHEPHERD. 

And taking by his jewelled hand 

The jewel of that lady bland, 

He sees the tossing antlers pass 

And throw quaint shadows o'er the grass; 

While she alike the hour beguiles, 

And looks at him and them, and smiles. 

SECOND SHEPHERD. 

With conscience proof 'gainst Satan's shock. 
Albeit finer than her smock,i 
Marry ! her smiles are not of vanity, 
But resting on sound Christianity. 
Faith you would sware had naii'd ^ her ears on 
The book and cushion of the parson. 

" Methinks the rhyme at the latter end might be bettered," 
said Sir Thomas. "The remainder is indited not unaptly. 
But, young man, never having obtained the permission of my 
honorable dame to praise her in guise of poetry, I cannot see 
all the merit I would fain discern in the verses. She ought first 
to have been sounded ; and it being certified that she disap- 
proved not her glorification, then might it be trumpeted forth 
into the world below." 

" Most worshipful knight," replied the youngster, " I never 
could take it in hand to sound a dame of quality ; they are all 
of them too deep and too practised for me, and have better 
and abler men about 'em. And surely I did imagine to myself 
that if it were asked of any honorable man (omitting to speak 
of ladies) whether he would give permission to be openly 
praised, he would reject the application as a gross offence. It 
appeareth to me that even to praise one's self, although it be 
shameful, is less shameful than to throw a burning coal into 

1 " Smock," formerly a part of female dress, corresponding with 
"shroud," or what we now call (or lately called) "shirt," of the man's. 
Fox, speaking of Latimer's burning, says, "Being slipped into his 
shroud." 

2 Faith nailing the ears is a strong and sacred metaphor. The rhyme 
is imperfect ; Shakspeare was not always attentive to these minor 
beauties. 



176 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

the incense-box that another doth hold to waft before us, 
and then to snift and simper over it with maidenly wish- 
ful coyness, as if forsooth one had no hand in setting it 
a-smoke." 

Then did Sir Thomas, in his zeal to instruct the ignorant, 
and so make the lowly hold up their heads, say unto him, 
" Nay, but all the great do thus. Thou must not praise them 
without leave and license. Praise unpermitted is plebeian 
praise. It is presumption to suppose that thou knowest enough 
of the noble and the great to discover their high qualities. 
They alone could manifest them unto thee. It requireth much 
discernment and much time to enucleate and bring into light 
their abstruse wisdom and gravely featured virtues. Those of 
ordinary men lie before thee in thy daily walks ; thou mayest 
know them by converse at their tables, as thou knowest the 
little tame squirrel that chippeth his nuts in the open sunshine 
of a bowling-green. But beware how thou enterest the awful 
arbors of the great, who conceal their magnanimity in the 
depths of their hearts as lions do." 

He then paused ; and observing the youth in deep and 
earnest meditation over the fruits of his experience, as one who 
tasted and who would fain digest them, he gave him encour- 
agement, and relieved the weight of his musings, by kind inter- 
rogation : "So then these verses are thine own? " 

The youth answered, " Sir, I must confess my fault." 

"And who was the shepherd written here 'Second Shep- 
herd,' that had the ill manners to interrupt thee ? Methinks 
in helping thee to mount the saddle he pretty nigh tossed thee 
over -^ with his jerks and quirks." 

Without waiting for any answer, his worship continued his 
interrogations. " But do you wool-staplers call yourselves by 
the style and title of shepherds?" 

1 Shakspeare seems to have profited afterward by this metaphor, even 
more perhaps than by all the direct pieces of instruction in poetry given 
him so handsomely by the worthy knight. And here it may be permitted 
the editor to profit also by the manuscript, correcting in Shakspeare what 
is absolute nonsense as now printed : — 

" Vaulting ambition that o'erleaps itself. 
And falls on the other side." 

Other side of what ? It should be " its sell." Sell is saddle in Spenser 
and elsewhere, from the Latin and Italian. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I// 

" Verily, sir, do we ; and I trust by right. The last owner 
of any place is called the master, more properly than the 
dead and gone who once held it. If that be true (and who 
doubts it ?) , we who have the last of the sheep, — namely, the 
wool and skin, — and who buy all of all the flock, surely may 
more properly be called shepherds than those idle vagrants 
who tend them only for a season, selling a score or purchasing 
a score as may happen." 

Here Sir Thomas did pause awhile, and then said unto 
Master Silas, " My own cogitations, and not this stripling, have 
induced me to consider and to conclude a weighty matter for 
knightly scholarship. I never could rightly understand before 
how Colin Clout, and sundry others calling themselves shep- 
herds, should argue like doctors in law, physic, and divinity. 
Silas, they were wool-staplers ; and they must have exercised 
their wits in dealing with tithe-proctors and parsons, and more- 
over with fellows of colleges from our two learned universities, 
who have sundry lands held under them, as thou knowest, and 
take the small tithes in kind. Colin Clout, methinks, from his 
extensive learning might have acquired enough interest with the 
Queen's Highness to change his name for the better, and fur- 
thermore her royal license to carry armorial bearings, in no 
peril of taint from so unsavory an appellation." 

Master Silas did interrupt this discourse, by saying, '* May it 
please your worship, the constable is waiting." 

Whereat Sir Thomas said tartly, " And let him wait." ^ 

Then to me : " I hope we have done with verses, and are 
not to be befooled by the lad's nonsense touching mermaids 
or worse creatures." 

Then to Will : " William Shakspeare, we live in a Christian 
land, — a land of great toleration and forbearance. Threescore 
carts full of fagots a year are fully sufficient to clear our English 
air from every pestilence of heresy and witchcraft. It hath not 

1 It has been suggested that this answer was borrowed from Virgil, and 
goes strongly against the genuineness of the manuscript. The Editor's 
memory was upon the stretch to recollect the words : the learned critic 
supplied them, — 

" Solum jEneas vocat : et vocei, oro.'' 

The Editor could only reply, indeed weakly, that calling and waiting are 
not exactly the same, unless when tradesmen rap and gentlemen are leav- 
insc town. 



178 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

alway been so, God wot ! Innocent and guilty took their 
turns before the fire, Uke geese and capons. The spit was 
never cold ; the cook's sleeve was ever above the elbow. 
Countrymen came down from distant villages, into towns and 
cities, to see perverters whom they had never heard of, and to 
learn the righteousness of hatred. When heretics waxed fewer, 
the religious began to grumble that God in losing his enemies 
had also lost his avengers. 

" Do not thou, William Shakspeare, dig the hole for thy own 
stake. If thou canst not make men wise, do not make them 
merry at thy cost. We are not to be paganized any more. 
Having struck from our calendars and unnailed from our 
chapels many dozens of decent saints, with as little compunc- 
tion and remorse as unlucky lads throw frog-spawn and tadpoles 
out of stagnant ditches, never let us think of bringing back 
among us the daintier divinities they ousted. All these are the 
Devil's imps, beautiful as they appear in what we falsely call 
works of genius, which really and truly are the Devil's own, — 
statues more graceful than humanity, pictures more living than 
life, eloquence that raised single cities above empires, poor men 
above kings. If these are not Satan's works, where are they? 
I will tell thee where they are likewise : in holding vain con- 
verse with false gods. The utmost we can allow in propriety 
is to call a knight Phoebus, and a dame Diana. They are not 
meat for every trencher. 

"We must now proceed straightforward with the business 
on which thou comest before us. What further sayest thou, 
witness? " 

Treen. His face was toward me : I saw it clearly. The 
graver man followed him into the punt, and said roughly, " We 
shall get hanged as sure as thou pipest." Whereunto he 
answered, — 

" Naturally, as fall upon the ground 
The leaves in winter and the girls in spring." 

And then began he again with the mermaid ; whereat the graver 
man clapped a hand before his mouth, and swore he should 
take her in wedlock, to have and to hold, if he sang another 
stave. "And thou shalt be her pretty httle bridemaid," quoth 
he gayly to the graver man, chucking him under the chin. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1/9 

Sir Thomas. And what did Carnaby say unto thee, or what 
didst thou say unto Carnaby ? 

Treen. Carnaby said unto me, somewhat tauntingly, " The 
big squat man that lay upon thy bread-basket Hke a night-mare 
is a punt at last, it seems." 

" Punt, and more too," answered I, " Tarry awhile, and thou 
shalt see this punt (so let me call it) lead them into tempta- 
tion, and swamp them, or carry them to the gallows : I would 
not stay else. 

Sir Thomas. And what didst thou, Joseph Carnaby? 

Carnaby. Finding him neither slack nor shy, I readily tarried. 
We knelt down opposite each other, and said our prayers ; and 
he told me he was now comfortable. " The evil one," said he, 
" hath enough to mind yonder, — he shall not hurt us." Never 
was a sweeter night, had there been but some mild ale under it, 
which any one would have sworn it was made for. The milky 
way looked like a long drift of hailstones on a sunny ridge. 

Sir Thomas. Hast thou done describing? 

Carnaby. Yea, an please your worship. 

Sir Thomas. God's blessing be upon thee, honest Carnaby ! 
I feared a moon-fall. In our days nobody can think about a 
plum-pudding but the moon comes down upon it. I warrant 
ye this lad here hath as many moons in his poems as the Sara- 
cens had in their banners. 

Shakspeare. I have not hatched mine yet, sir. Whenever 
I do I trust it will be worth taking to market, 

Carnaby. I said all I know of the stars ; but Master Euseby 
can run over half a score and upward, here and there. " Am 
I right or wrong? " cried he, spreading on the back of my hand 
all his fingers, stiff as antlers and cold as icicles. " Look up ! 
Joseph, Joseph, there is no Lucifer in the firmament ! " I 
myself did feel queerish and qualmy upon hearing that a star 
was missing, being no master of gainsaying it ; and I abased my 
eyes and entreated of Euseby to do in like manner. And in 
this posture did we both of us remain ; and the missing star 
did not disquiet me ; and all the others seemed as if they 
knew us and would not tell of us ; and there was peace and 
pleasantness over sky and earth. And I said to my companion, 
" How quiet now, good Master Euseby, are all God's creatures 
in this meadow, because they never pry into such high matters, 



I80 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

but breathe sweetly among the pig-nuts. The only things we 
hear or see stirring are the glow-worms and dormice, as though 
they were sent for our edification, — teaching us to rest con- 
tented with our own little light, and to come out and seek our 
sustenance where none molest or thwart us." 

Shakspeare. Ye would have it thus, no doubt, when your 
pockets and pouches are full of gins and nooses. 

Sir Thomas. A bridle upon thy dragon's tongue ! And do 
thou, Master Joseph, quit the dormice and glow-worms, and 
tell us whither did the rogues go. 

Carnaby. I wot not after they had crossed the river : they 
were soon out of sight and hearing. 

Sir Thomas. Went they toward Charlecote ? 

Carnaby. Their first steps were thitherward. 

Sir Thomas. Did they come back unto the punt? 

Cai'naby. They went down the stream in it, and crossed 
the Avon some fourscore yards below where we were standing. 
They came back in it, and moored it to the sedges in which it 
had stood before. 

Sir Thovias. How long were they absent ? 

Carnaby. Within an hour, or thereabout, all the three men 
returned. Will Shakspeare and another were sitting in the 
middle, the third punted. 

" Remember now, gentles ! " quoth William Shakspeare, 
" the road we have taken is henceforward a footpath forever, 
according to law." 

" How so? " asked the punter, turning toward him. 

" Forasmuch as a corpse hath passed along it," answered he. 

Whereupon both Euseby and myself did forthwith fall upon 
our faces, commending our souls unto the Lord. 

Sir Thomas. It was then really the dead body that quivered 
so fearfully upon the water, covering all the punt ! Christ de- 
liver us ! I hope the keeper they murdered was not Jeremiah. 
His wife and four children would be very chargeable, and the 
man was by no means amiss. Proceed ! what further? 

Carnaby. On reaching the bank, " I never sat pleasanter 
in my lifetime," said William Shakspeare, " than upon this 
carcass." 

Sir Thomas. Lord have mercy upon us ! Thou upon a 
carcass, at thy years ? 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. l8l 

And the knight drew back his chair half an ell farther from 
the table, and his lips quivered at the thought of such inhu- 
manity. "And what said he more, and what did he? " asked 
the knight. 

Carnaby. He patted it smartly, and said, " Lug it out ; 
break it." 

Sir Thomas. These four poor children ! who shall feed 
them? 

Sir Silas. Sir, in God's name have you forgotten that Jere- 
miah is gone to Nuneaton to see his father, and that the mur- 
dered man is the buck? 

Sir Thomas. They killed the buck likewise. But what, ye 
cowardly varlets ! have ye been deceiving me all this time ? 
And thou, youngster, couldst thou say nothing to clear up the 
case ? Thou shalt smart for it. Methought I had lost by a 
violent death the best servant ever-man had ; righteous, if there 
be no blame in saying it, as the prophet whose name he beareth, 
and brave as the lion of Judah. 

Shakspeare. Sir, if these men could deceive your worship 
for a moment, they might deceive me forever. I could not 
guess what their story aimed at, except my ruin. I am inclined 
to lean for once toward the opinion of Master Silas, and to be- 
lieve it was really the stolen buck on which this William (if in- 
deed there is any truth at all in the story) was sitting. 

Sir Thomas. What more hast thou for me that is not enigma 
or parable ? 

Carnaby. I did not see the carcass, man's or beast's, may 
it please your worship, and I have recited and can recite that 
only which I saw and heard. After the words of lugging out 
and breaking it, knives were drawn accordingly. It was no time 
to loiter or Hnger. We crope back under the shadow of the 
alders and hazels on the high bank that bordereth Mickle 
Meadow, and making straight for the public road hastened 
homeward. 

Sir Thomas. Hearing this deposition, dost thou affirm the 
like upon thy oath, Master Euseby Treen, or dost thou vary in 
aught essential? 

Treen. Upon my oath I do depose and affirm the like, and 
truly the identical same ; and I will never more vary upon aught 
essential. 



162 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. I do now further demand of thee whether thou 
knowest anything more appertaining unto this business. 

Treen. Ay, verily ; that your worship may never hold me 
for timorsome and superstitious, I do furthermore add that some 
other than deer-stealers was abroad. In sign whereof, although 
it was the dryest and clearest night of the season, my jerkin was 
damp inside and outside when I reached the house-door. 

Shakspeare. I warrant thee, Euseby, the damp began not 
at the outside. A word in thy ear : Lucifer was thy tapster, 
I trow. 

Sir Thomas. Irreverent swine ! hast no awe nor shame? 
Thou hast aggravated thy offence, William Shakspeare, by thy 
foul-mouthedness. 

Sir Silas. I must remind your worship that he not only has 
committed this iniquity afore, but hath pawed the puddle he 
made, and relapsed into it after due caution and reproof. God 
forbid that what he spake against me, out of the gall of his 
proud stomach, should move me. I defy him, a low ignorant 

wretch, a rogue and vagabond, a thief and cut-throat, a ^ 

monger and mutton-eater. 

Shakspeare. Your worship doth hear the learned clerk's 
testimony in my behalf. " Out of the mouth of babes and 
sucklings — " 

Sir Thomas. Silas, the youth has failings, — a madcap ; but 
he is pious. 

Shakspeare. Alas, no, sir ! Would I were ! But Sir Silas, 
like the prophet, came to curse and was forced to bless me, 
even me, a sinner, a mutton-eater ! 

Sir Thomas. Thou urgedst him. He beareth no ill-will to- 
ward thee. Thou knewedst, I suspect, that the blackness in 
his mouth proceeded from a natural cause. 

Shakspeare. The Lord is merciful ! I was brought hither in 
jeopardy ; I shall return in joy. Whether my innocence be de- 
clared or otherwise, my piety and knowledge will be forwarded 
and increased ; for your worship will condescend, even from 
the judgment-seat, to enlighten the ignorant where a soul shall 
be saved or lost ! And I, even I, may trespass a moment on 

1 Here the manuscript is blotted ; but the probability is, that it wasyfj^- 
monger, rather than ironmonger, fishmongers having always been notorious 
cheats and liars. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 83 

your courtesy. I quail at the words natural cause. Be there 
any such ? 

Sir Thomas. Youth, I never thought thee so staid. Thou 
hast, for these many months, been represented unto me as one 
dissolute and light, much given unto mummeries and mysteries, 
wakes and carousals, cudgel-fighters and mountebanks, and 
wanton women. They do also represent of thee (I hope it may 
be without foundation) that thou enactest the parts, not simply 
of foresters and fairies, girls in the green-sickness and friars, 
lawyers and outlaws, but likewise, having small reverence for 
station, of kings and queens, knights and privy-councillors, in 
all their glory. It hath been whispered moreover, and the testi- 
mony of these two witnesses doth appear in some measure to 
countenance and confirm it, that thou hast at divers times this 
last summer been seen and heard alone, inasmuch as human 
eye may discover, on the narrow slip of green-sward between 
the Avon and the chancel, distorting thy body like one possessed, 
and uttering strange language, like unto incantation. This how- 
ever Cometh not before me. Take heed ! take heed unto thy 
ways ! there are graver things in law even than homicide and 
deer-stealing. 

Sir Silas. And strong against him. Folks have been con- 
sumed at the stake for pettier felonies and upon weaker 
evidence. 

Sir Thomas. To that anon. 

— William Shakspeare did hold down his head, answering 
nought. And Sir Thomas spake again unto him, as one mild 
and fatherly, if so be that such a word may be spoken of a 
knight -and parliament-man. And these are the words he 
spake : — 

" Reason and ruminate with thyself now. To pass over and 
pretermit the danger of representing the actions of the others, 
and mainly of lawyers and churchmen, — the former of whom 
do pardon no offences, and the latter those only against God 
(having no warrant for more), — canst thou believe it innocent 
to counterfeit kings and queens? Supposest thou that if the 
impression of their faces on a farthing be felonious and rope- 
worthy, the imitation of head and body, voice and bearing, 
plume and strut, crown and mantle, and everything else that 
maketh them royal and glorious, be aught less? Perpend, 



184 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

young man, perpend ! Consider who among inferior mortals 
shall imitate them becomingly? Dreamest thou they talk and 
act like checkmen at Banbury Fair? How can thy shallow 
brain suffice for their vast conceptions ? How darest thou say, 
as they do, Hang this fellow, quarter that, flay, mutilate, stab, 
shoot, press, hook, torture, bum alive? These are royalties. 
Who appointed thee to such office ? The Holy Ghost ? He 
alone can confer it ; but when wert thou anointed ? " 

William was so zealous in storing up these verities that he 
looked as though he were unconscious that the pouring-out 
was over. He started, which he had not done before, at the 
voice of Master Silas ; but soon recovered his complacency, 
and smiled with much serenity at being called low-minded 
varlet. 

" Low-minded varlet ! " cried Master Silas, most contemptu- 
ously, " dost thou imagine that king calleth king, like thy 
chums, filcher and fibber, whirligig and nincojnpoop ? Instead 
of this low vulgarity and sordid idleness, ending in nothing, they 
throw at one another such fellows as thee by the thousand, and 
when they have cleared the land, render God thanks and make 
peace." 

Willy did now sigh out his ignorance of these matters ; and 
he sighed mayhap too at the recollection of the peril he had 
run into, and had ne'er a word on the nail.^ 

The bowels of Sir Thomas waxed tenderer and tenderer, and 
he opened his lips in this fashion : — 

" Stripling ! I would now communicate unto thee, on finding 
thee docile and assentaneous, the instruction thou needest on 
the signification of the words natural cause, if thy duty toward 
thy neighbor had been first instilled into thee." 

Whereupon Master Silas did interpose, for the dinner-hour 
was drawing nigh. 

"We cannot do all at once," quoth he. " Coming out of 
order, it might harm him. Malt before hops, the world over, 
or the beer muddies." 

But Sir Thomas was not to be pricked out of his form even 
by so shrewd a pricker ; and, like unto one who heareth not, 
he continued to look most graciously on the homely vessel that 
stood ready to receive his wisdom. 
1 " On the nail " appears to be intended to express " ready payment." 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 85 

"Thy mind," said he, " being tinprepared for higher cogita- 
tions, and the groundwork and religious duty not being well 
rammer-beaten and fiinted, I do pass over this supererogatory 
point, and inform thee rather, that bucks and swans and herons 
have something in their very names announcing them of knight- 
ly appurtenance, and (God forefend that evil do ensue there- 
from !) that a goose on the common, or a game-cock on the 
loft of a cottager or villager, may be seized, bagged, and ab- 
ducted ^vith far less offence to the laws. In a buck there is 
something so gainly and so grand, he treadeth the earth with 
such ease and such agility, he abstaineth from all other ani- 
mals with such punctilious avoidance, one would imagine God 
created him when he created knighthood. In the swan there 
is such purity, such coldness is there in the element he inhab- 
iteth, such solitude of station, that verily he doth remind me 
of the Virgin Queen herself. Of the heron I have less to say, 
not having him about me ; but I never heard his lordly croak 
without the conceit that it resembled a chancellor's or a pri- 
mate's. I do perceive, Wilham Shakspeare, thy compunction 
and contrition." 

Shakspeare. I was thinking, may it please your worship, of 
the game-cock and the goose, having but small notion of herons. 
This doctrine of abduction, please your worship, hath been 
alway inculcated by the soundest of our judges. Would they 
had spoken on other points with the same clearness ! How 
many unfortunates might thereby have been saved from crossing 
the Cordilleras ! ^ 

Sir Thomas. Ay, ay ! they have been fain to fly the country 
at last, thither or elsewhere. 

— And then did Sir Thomas call unto him Master Silas, and 
say, " Walk we into the bay-window. And thou mayest come, 
Ephraim." 

And when we were there together, — I, Master Silas, and his 
worship, — did his worship say unto the chaplain, but oftener 
looking toward me : " I am not ashamed to avouch that it goeth 
against me to hang this yoimg fellow, richly as the offence in its 
own nature doth deserve it ; he talketh so reasonably, — not 

1 Perhaps a pun was intended ; or possibly it might, in the age of Eliz- 
abeth, have been a vulgar term for hanging, although we find no trace 
of the expression in other books. 



1 86 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

indeed so reasonably, but so like unto what a reasonable man 
may listen to and reflect on. There is so much too of com- 
passion for others in hard cases, and something so very near in 
semblance to innocence itself in that airy swing of light-heart- 
edness about him. I cannot fix my eyes (as one would say) 
on the shifting and sudden shade-and-shine, which cometh 
back to me, do what I will, and mazes me in a manner, and 
blinks me." 

At this juncture I was ready to fall upon the ground before 
his worship, and clasp his knees for Willy's pardon. But he 
had so many points about him that I feared to discompose 'em, 
and thus make bad worse. Besides which. Master Silas left me 
but scanty space for good resolutions, crying, " He may be 
committed to save time. Afterward he may be sentenced to 
death, or he may not." 

Sir Thomas. 'T were shame upon me were he not ; 't were 
indication that I acted unadvisedly in the commitment. 

Sir Silas. The penalty of the law may be commuted, if ex- 
pedient, on application to the fountain of mercy in London. 

Sir Thomas. Maybe, Silas, those shall be standing round 
the fount of mercy who play in idleness and wantonness with its 
waters, and let them not flow widely nor take their natural 
course. Dutiful gallants may encompass it, and it may linger 
among the flowers they throw into it, and never reach the 
parched lip on the wayside. 

These are homely thoughts, — thoughts from a-field, thoughts 
for the study and housekeeper's room ; but whenever I have 
given utterance unto them, as my heart hath often prompted 
me with beatings at the breast, my hearers seemed to bear 
toward me more true and kindly affection than my richest 
fancies and choicest phraseologies could purchase. 

'Twere convenient to bethink thee, should any other great 
man's park have been robbed this season, no judge upon the 
bench will back my recommendation for mercy. And indeed 
how could I expect it? Things may soon be brought to such 
a pass that their lordships shall scarcely find three haunches 
each upon the circuit. 

"Well, sir," quoth Master Silas, "you have a right to go on 
in your own way. Make him only give up the girl." 

Here Sir Thomas reddened with righteous indignation, and 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. ig/ 

answered, " I cannot think it ! such a striphng, — poor, penni- 
less ! It must be some one else." 

And now Master Silas did redden in his turn redder than Sir 
Thomas, and first asked me, " What the devil do you stare at? " 
And then asked his worship, "Who should it be if not the 
rogue? " and his lips turned as blue as a blue-bell. 

Then Sir Thomas left the window and again took his chair, 
and having stood so long on his legs, groaned upon it to ease 
him. His worship scowled with all his might, and looked ex- 
ceedingly wroth and vengeful at the culprit, and said unto him, 
" Hark ye, knave ! I have been conferring with my learned 
clerk and chaplain in what manner I may, with the least severity, 
rid the county (which thou disgracest) of thee." 

William Shakspeare raised up his eyes, modestly and fear- 
fully, and said slowly these few words, which, had they been a 
better and nobler man's, would deserve to be written in letters 
of gold. I, not having that art nor substance, do therefore write 
them in my largest and roundest character, and do leave space 
about 'em, according to their rank and dignity : — 

" Worshipful sir ! a word est the ear is often as good 

AS A halter under IT, AND SAVES THE GROAT." 

"Thou discoursest well," said Sir Thomas, "but others can 
discourse well likewise. Thou shalt avoid : I am resolute." 

Shakspeare. I supplicate your honor to impart unto me, in 
your wisdom, the mode and means whereby I may surcease to 
be disgraceful to the county. 

Sir Thomas. I am not bloody-minded. First, thou shalt 
have the fairest and fullest examination. Much hath been 
deposed against thee ; something may come forth for thy ad- 
vantage. I will not thy death ; thou shalt not die. The laws 
have loopholes like castles, both to shoot from and to let folks 
down. 

Sir Silas. That pointed ear would look the better for 
pairing, and that high forehead can hold many letters. 

— Whereupon did WilUam, poor lad, turn deadly pale, but 
spake not. 

Sir Thomas then abated a whit of his severity, and said 
staidly: "Testimony doth appear plain and positive against 
thee ; nevertheless am I minded and prompted to aid thee 
myself, in disclosing and unfolding what thou couldst not of 



1 88 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

thine own wits, in furtherance of thine own defence. One 
witness is persuaded and assured of the evil spirit having been 
abroad, and the punt appeared unto him diversely from what 
it appeared unto the other." 

Shakspeare. If the evil spirit produced one appearance, he 
might have produced all, with deference to the graver judg- 
ment of your worship. If what seemed pimt was devil, what 
seemed buck might have been devil too ; nay, more easily, the 
horns being forthcoming. Thieves and reprobates do resemble 
him more nearly still ; and it would be hard if he could not 
make free with their bodies, when he has their souls already. 

Sir Thomas. But, then, those voices ! and thou thyself, 
Will Shakspeare ! 

Shakspeare. Oh, might I kiss the hand of my deliverer, 
whose clear-sightedness throweth such manifest and plenary 
light upon my innocence? 

Sir Thomas. How so? What light, in God's name, have 
I thrown upon it as yet ? 

Shakspeare. Oh, those voices, those fairies and spirits ! 
whence came they? None can deal with 'em but the Devil, 
the parson, and witches. And does not the Devil oftentimes 
take the very form, features, and habiliments of knights and 
bishops and other good men, to lead them into temptation 
and destroy them ; or to injure their good name, in failure of 
seduction ? He is sure of the wicked : he lets them go their 
ways out of hand. I think your worship once delivered some 
such observation, in more courtly guise, which I would not 
presume to ape. If it was not your worship it was our glori- 
ous lady, the Queen, or the wise Master Walsingham, or the 
great Lord Cecil. I may have marred and broken it, as sluts 
do a pancake, in the turning. 

Sir Thojnas. Why, ay, indeed ! I had occasion once to 
remark as much. 

Shakspeare. So have I heard in many places ; although I 
was not present when Matthew Atterend fought about it for 
the honor of Kineton hundred. 

Sir Thomas. Fought about it ! 

Shakspeare. As your honor recollects. Not but on other 
occasions he would have fought no less bravely for the queen. 

Sir Thomas. We must get thee through, were it only for 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 89 

thy memory, — the most precious gift among the mental powers 
that Providence hath bestowed upon us. I had half- forgotten 
the thing myself. Thou mayest in time take thy satchel for 
London, and aid good old Master Holingshed. We must clear 
thee, Will ! I am slow to surmise that there is blood upon 
thy hands ! 

— His worship's choler had all gone down again ; and he sat 
as cool and comfortable as a man sitteth to be shaved. Then 
called he upon Euseby Treen, and said, "■ Euseby Treen, tell 
us whether thou observedst anything unnoticed or unsaid by 
the last witness." 

Treen. One thing only, sir. When they had passed the 
water, an owlet hooted after them ; and methought if they 
had any fear of God before their eyes they would have turned 
back, he cried so lustily. 

Shakspeare. Sir, I cannot forbear to take the owlet out of 
your mouth. He knocks them all on the head like so many 
mice. Likely story ! One fellow hears him cry lustily, the 
other doth not hear him at all. 

Carnaby. Not hear him ! A body might have heard him 
at Barford or Sherbourne. 

Sir Thomas. Why didst not name him? Canst not an- 
swer me? 

Carnaby. He doubted whether punt were punt ; I doubted 
whether owlet were owlet, after Lucifer was away from the 
roll-call. We say " speak the truth and shame the Devil ; " 
but shaming him is one thing, your honor, and facing him 
another ! I have heard owlets, but never owlet like him. 

Shakspeare. The Lord be praised ! All, at last, a-running 
to my rescue. Owlet, indeed ! Your worship may have re- 
membered in an ancient book, — indeed, what book is so 
ancient that your worship doth not remember it ? — a book 
printed by Dr Faustus. 

Sir Thomas. Before he dealt with the Devil ? 

Shakspeare. Not long before ; it being the very book that 
made the Devil think it worth his while to deal with him. 

Sir Thomas. What chapter thereof wouldst thou recall unto 
my recollection ? 

Shakspeare. That concerning owls, with the grim print 
afore it. Dr. Faustus, the wise doctor, who knew other than 



190 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

owls and owlets, knew the tempter in that form. Faustus 
was not your man for fancies and figments ; and he tells us 
that to his certain knowledge it was verily an owl's face 
that whispered so much mischief in the ear of our first 
parent. 

"One plainly sees it," quoth Dr. Faustus, "under that 
gravity which in human life we call dignity, but of which we 
read nothing in the Gospel. We despise the hangman, we de- 
test the hanged ; and yet, saith Duns Scotus, could we turn 
aside the heavy curtain, or stand high enough a-tiptoe to peep 
through its chinks and crevices, we should perhaps find these 
two characters to stand justly among the most innocent in the 
drama. He who blinketh the eyes of the poor wretch about 
to die doeth it out of mercy ; those who preceded him, bidding 
him in the garb of justice to shed the blood of his fellow-man, 
had less or none. So they hedge well their own grounds, what 
care they? For this do they catch at stakes and thorns, at 
quick and rotten — " 

Here Master Silas interrupted the discourse of the Devil's 
own doctor, delivered and printed by him before he was the 
Devil's, to which his worship had listened very attentively and 
delightedly. But Master Silas could keep his temper no longer, 
and cried fiercely, " Seditious serraonizer ! hold thy peace, or 
thou shalt answer for 't before convocation ! " 

Sir Thomas. Silas, thou dost not approve then the doctrine 
of this Dr. Duns ? 

Sir Silas. Heretical rabbi ! 

Shakspeare. If two of a trade can never agree, yet surely 
two of a name may. 

Sir Silas. Who dares call me heretical ; who dares call me 
rabbi ; who dares call me Scotus ? Spider ! spider ! yea, thou 
hast one corner left. I espy thee, and my broom shall reach 
thee yet. 

Shakspeare. I perceive that Master Silas doth verily beheve 
I have been guilty of suborning the witnesses, at least the last, 
the best man (if any difference) of the two. No, sir, no. If 
my family and friends have united their wits and money for 
this purpose, be the crime of perverted justice on their heads ! 
They injure whom they intended to serve. Improvident men 
(if the young may speak thus of the elderly) ! could they im- 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 19I 

agine to themselves that your worship was to be hoodwinked 
and led astray? 

Sir Thomas. No man shall ever dare to hoodwink me, to 
lead me astray, — no, nor lead me anywise. Powerful defence ! 
Heyday ! Sit quiet. Master Treen ! Euseby Treen, dost hear 
me? Clench thy fist again, sirrah, and I clap thee in the 
stocks. Joseph Carnaby, do not scratch thy breast nor thy 
pate before me. 

— Now, Joseph had not only done that in his wrath, but 
had unbuckled his leathern garter, fit instrument for strife 
and blood, and peradventure would have smitten, had not 
the knight, with magisterial authority, interposed. 

His worship said unto him gravely, "Joseph Carnaby, 
Joseph Carnaby, hast thou never read the words. Put up thy 
sword? " 

"Subornation! your worship," cried Master Joe. "The 
fellow hath ne'er a shilling in leather or till, and many must go 
to suborn one like me," 

" I do believe it of thee," said Sir Thomas ; " but patience, 
man ! patience ! he rather tended toward exculpating thee. Ye 
have far to walk for dinner ; ye may depart." 

They went accordingly. 

Then did Sir Thomas say, " These are hot men, Silas." 

And Master Silas did reply unto him, " There are brands that 
would set fire to the bulrushes in the mill-pool. I know these 
twain for quiet folks, having coursed with them over Wincott." 

Sir Thomas then said unto Wilham, " It behooveth thee to 
stand clear of yon Joseph, unless when thou mayest call to thy 
aid the Matthew Atterend thou speakest of. He did then fight 
valiantly, eh? " 

Shakspeare. His cause fought valiantly ; his fist but seconded 
it. He won, — proving the golden words to be no property of 
our lady's, although her Highness hath never disclaimed them. 

Sir Thomas. What art thou saying? 

Shakspeare. So I heard from a preacher at Oxford, who had 
preached at Easter in the chapel-royal of Westminster. 

Sir Thomas. Thou ! why how could that happen ? Oxford ! 
chapel-royal ! 

Shakspeare. And to whom I said (your worship will for- 
give my forwardness), " I have the honor, sir, to live within two 



192 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

measured miles of the very Sir Thomas Lucy who spake that ; " 
and I vow I said it without any hope or beUef that he would 
invite me, as he did, to dine with him thereupon. 

Sir Thomas. There be nigh upon three miles betwixt this 
house and Stratford bridge-end. 

Shakspeare. I dropped a mile in my pride and exultation, 
God forgive me ! I would not conceal my fault. 

Sir Thomas. Wonderful ! that a preacher so learned as to 
preach before majesty in the chapel-royal should not have 
caught thee tripping over a whole lawful mile, a good third of 
the distance between my house and J;he cross-roads. This is 
incomprehensible in a scholar. 

Shakspeare. God willed that he should become my teacher, 
and in the bowels of his mercy hid my shame. 

Sir Thomas. How camest thou into the converse of such 
eminent and ghostly men? 

Shakspeare. How, indeed ! Everything against me. 

— He sighed and entered into a long discourse, which Mas- 
ter Silas would at sundry times have interrupted, but that Sir 
Thomas more than once frowned upon him, even as he had 
frowned heretofore on young Will, who thus began and con- 
tinued his narration : — 

" Hearing the preacher preach at St. Mary's (for being about, 
my father's business on Saturday, and not choosing to be a- 
horseback on Sundays, albeit time-pressed, I footed it to Ox- 
ford for my edification on the Lord's day, leaving the sorrel 
with Master Hal Webster of the Tankard and Unicorn) , — hear- 
ing him preach, as I was saying, before the University in St. 
Mary's church, and hearing him use moreover the very words 
that Matthew fought about, I was impatient (God forgive me !) 
for the end and consummation, and I thought I never should 
hear those precious words that ease every man's heart, ' Now, 
to conclude.' However, come they did. I hurried out among 
the foremost, and thought the congratulations of the other 
doctors and dons would last forever. He walked sharply off, 
and few cared to keep his pace, for they are lusty men mostly, 
and spiteful bad women had breathed ^ in the faces of some 
among them, or the gowns had got between their legs. For 

1 In that age there was prevalent a sort of cholera, on which Fracas- 
torius, half a century before, wrote a Latin poem, employing the graceful 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 93 

my part, I was not to be balked ; so, tripping on aside him, I 
looked in his face askance. Whether he misgave, or how, he 
turned his eyes downward. No matter, have him I would. I 
licked my lips and smacked them loud and smart, and scarcely 
venturing to nod, I gave my head such a sort of motion as dace 
and roach give an angler's quill when they begin to bite. And 
this fairly hooked him. 

" 'Young gentleman,' said he, 'where is your gown? ' 

" ' Reverend sir,' said I, ' I am unworthy to wear one.' 

" ' A proper youth, nevertheless, and mightily well spoken ! ' 
he was pleased to say. 

" ' Your reverence hath given me heart, which failed me,' 
was my reply. 'Ah, your reverence, those words about the 
Devil were spicy words ; but under favor, I do know the brook- 
side they sprang and flowered by. 'T is just where it runs into 
Avon ; 't is called Hog-brook.' 

" ' Right,' quoth he, putting his hand gently on my shoulder ; 
' but if I had thought it needful to say so in my sermon, I should 
have affronted the seniors of the University, since many claim 
them, and some peradventure would fain transpose them into 
higher places, and giving up all right and title to them, would 
accept in lieu thereof the poor recompense of a mitre.' 

"I wished (unworthy wish for a Sunday!) I had Matthew 
Atterend in the midst of them. He would have given them 
skulls mitre-fashioned, if mitres are cloven now as we see them 
on ancient monuments. Matt is your milliner for gentles, who 
think no more harm of purloining rich saws in a mitre than 
lane-born boys do of embezzling hazel-nuts in a woollen cap. 
I did not venture to expound or suggest my thoughts ; but 
feeling my choler rise higher and higher, I craved permission 
to make my obeisance and depart. 

" 'Where dost thou lodge, young man? ' said the preacher. 

nymphs of Homer and Hesiod, somewhat disguised, in the drudgery of 
pounding certain barks and minerals. An article in the Impeachment of 
Cardinal Wolsey accuses him of breathing in the king's face, knowing 
that he was affected with this cholera. It was a great assistant to the 
Reformation, by removing some of the most vigorous champions that op- 
posed it. In the Holy College it was followed by the sweating sickness, 
which thinned it very sorely; and several even of God's vicegerents were 
laid under tribulation by it. Among the chambers of the Vatican it hung 
for ages, and it crowned the labors of Pope Leo XII., of blessed memory, 
with a crown somewhat uneasy. 

13 



194 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

" 'At the public,' said I, 'where my father customarily lodg- 
eth. There too is a mitre of the old fashion, swinging on the 
sign-post in the middle of the street.' 

'"Respectable tavern enough,' quoth the reverend doctor; 
* and worthy men do turn in there, even quality, — Master 
Davenant, Master Powel, Master Whorwood, aged and grave 
men. But taverns are Satan's chapels, and are always well 
attended on the Lord's day, to twit him. Hast thou no friend 
in such a city as Oxford ? ' 

" ' Only the landlady of the Mitre,' said I. 

" ' A comely woman,' quoth he, ' but too young for business 
by half. Stay thou with me to-day, and fare frugally, but safely. 
What may thy name be, and where is thy abode ? ' 

" ' William Shakspeare, of Stratford-upon-Avon, at your 
service, sir.' 

" ' And welcome,' said he ; ' thy father ere now hath bought 
our college wool. A truly good man we ever found him ; and 
I doubt not he hath educated his son to follow him in his 
paths. There is in the blood of man, as in the blood of 
animals, that which giveth the temper and disposition. These 
require nurture and culture. But what nurture will turn flint- 
stones into garden mould, or what culture rear cabbages in the 
quarries of Hedington Hill ? To be well-bom is the greatest of 
all God's primary blessings, young man, and there are many 
well-born among the poor and needy. Thou art not of the 
indigent and destitute, who have great temptations ; thou art 
not of the wealthy and affluent, who have greater still. God 
hath placed thee, WiUiam Shakspeare, in that pleasant island, 
on one side whereof are the sirens, on the other the harpies, but 
inhabiting the coasts on the wider continent, and unable to make 
their talons felt or their voices heard by thee. Unite with me in 
prayer and thanksgiving for the blessings thus vouchsafed. We 
must not close the heart when the finger of God would touch it. 
Enough, if thou sayest only. My soul, praise thou the Lord ! ' " 

Sir Thomas said "Amen ! " Master Silas was mute for the 
moment, but then quoth he, "I can say Amen too, in the 
proper place." 

The knight of Charlecote, who appeared to have been much 
taken with this conversation, then interrogated Willy : " What 
further might have been thy discourse with the doctor, — or 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 95 

did he discourse at all at trencher-time? Thou must have 
been very much abashed to sit down at table with one who 
weareth a pure lamb-skin across his shoulder, and moreover 
a pink hood." 

Shakspeare. Faith ! was I, your honor, and could neither 
utter nor gulp. 

Sir Thomas. These are good signs. Thou hast not lost 
all grace. 

Shakspeare. With the encouragement of Dr. Glaston — 

Sir Thomas. And was it Dr. Glaston? 

Shakspeare. Said I not so? 

Sir Thomas. The learnedst clerk in Christendom, — a very 
Friar Bacon ! The pope offered a hundred marks in Latin to 
who should eviscerate or evirate him (poisons very potent, 
whereat the Italians are handy), so apostolic and desperate 
a doctor is Dr. Glaston, — so acute in his quiddities, and so 
resolute in his bearing ! He knows the dark arts, but stands 
aloof from them. Prythee, what were his words unto thee ? 

Shakspeare. Manna, sir, manna ! pure from the desert ! 

Sir Thomas. Ay, but what spake he ; for most sermons are 
that, and likewise many conversations after dinner? 

Shakspeare. He spake of the various races and qualities of 
men, as before stated, but chiefly on the elect and reprobate, 
and how to distinguish and know them. 

Sir Thomas. Did he go so far? 

Shakspeai^e. He told me that by such discussion he should 
say enough to keep me constantly out of evil company. 

Sir Thomas. See there, see there ! and yet thou art come 
before me ! Can nothing warn thee ? 

Shakspeare. I dare not dissemble nor feign nor hold aught 
back, although it be to my confusion. As well may I speak 
at once the whole truth ; for your worship could find it out if 
I abstained. 

Sir Thomas. Ay, that I should indeed, and shortly. But, 
come now, I am sated of thy follies and roguish tricks, and 
yearn after the sound doctrine of that pious man. What ex- 
pounded the grave Glaston upon signs and tokens whereby ye 
shall be known? 

Shakspeare. Wonderful things, — things beyond belief ! 
"There be certain men," quoth he — 



196 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. He began well. This promises. But why 
canst not thou go on? 

Shakspeare. " There be certain men who rubbing one comer 
of the eye do see a peacock's feather at the other, and even fire. 
We know, William, what that fire is, and whence it cometh. 
Those wicked men, WiUiam, all have their marks upon them, 
be it only a corn or a wart or a mole or a hairy ear or a 
toe-nail turned inward. Sufficient, and more than sufficient ! 
He knoweth his own by less tokens. There is not one of 
them that doth not sweat at some secret sin committed, or 
some inclination toward it unsnaffied. Certain men are there 
likewise who venerate so little the glorious works of the Crea- 
tor that I myself have known them to sneeze at the sun. 
Sometimes it was against their will, and they would gladly 
have checked it had they been able ; but they were forced to 
show what they are. In our carnal state we say. What is one 
against numbers? In another, we shall truly say. What are 
numbers against one?" 

— Sir Thomas did ejaculate, "Amen ! Amen ! " And then 
his lips moved silently, piously, and quickly; and then said 
he, audibly and loudly, " And make us at last true Israelites ! " 
After which he turned to young Willy, and said anxiously, " Hast 
thou more, lad? Give us it while the Lord strengtheneth." 

" Sir," answered Willy, " although I thought it no trouble 
on my return to the Mitre to write down every word I could 
remember, and although few did then escape me, yet at this 
present I can bring to mind but scanty sentences, and those so 
stray and out of order that they would only prove my incapacity 
for sterling wisdom, and my incontinence of spiritual treasure." 

Sir Thomas. Even that sentence hath a twang of the doctor 
in it,. Nothing is so sweet as humility. The mountains may 
descend, but the valleys, cannot rise. Every man should know 
himself. Come, repeat what thou canst. I would fain have 
three or four more heads. 

Shakspeare. I know not whether I can give your worship 
more than one other. Let me try. It was when Dr. Glaston 
was discoursing on the protection the wise and powerful should 
afford to the ignorant and weak : — 

" In the earlier ages of mankind, your Greek and Latin 
authors inform you, there went forth sundry worthies, men of 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 1 97 

might to deliver, not wandering damsels, — albeit for those 
likewise they had stowage, — but low-conditioned men, who fell 
under the displeasure of the higher, and groaned in thraldom 
and captivity. And these mighty ones were believed to have 
done such services to poor humanity that their memory grew 
greater than they, as shadows do than substances at day-fall. 
And the sons and grandsons of the delivered did laud and 
magnify those glorious names ; and some in gratitude, and 
some in tribulation, did ascend the hills, which appeared unto 
them as altars bestrewn with flowers and herbage for Heaven's 
acceptance. And many did go far into the quiet groves, under 
lofty trees, looking for whatever was mightiest and most pro- 
tecting ; and in such places did they cry aloud unto the mighty, 
who had left them, ' Return, return ! help us, help us ! be 
blessed ! forever blessed ! " 

" Vain men ! but, had they stayed there, not evil. Out of 
gratitude, purest gratitude, rose idolatry. For the Devil sees 
the fairest, and soils it. 

" In these our days, methinks, whatever other sins we may 
fall into, such idolatry is the least dangerous. For neither on 
the one side is there much disposition for gratitude, nor on the 
other much zeal to deliver the innocent and oppressed. Even 
this deliverance, although a merit and a high one, is not the 
highest. Forgiveness is beyond it. Forgive, or ye shall not 
be forgiven. This ye may do every day ; for if ye find not 
offences, ye feign them, — and surely ye may remove your own 
work, if ye may remove another's. To rescue requires more 
thought and wariness : learn then the easier lesson first. After- 
ward, when ye rescue any from another's violence, or from his 
own (which oftentimes is more dangerous, as the enemies are 
within not only the penetrals of his house but of his heart) , 
bind up his wounds before ye send him on his way. Should 
ye at any time overtake the erring, and resolve to deliver him 
up, I will tell you whither to conduct him. Conduct him to 
his Lord and Master, whose household he hath left. It is 
better to consign him to Christ his Saviour than to man his 
murderer; it is better to bid him live than to bid him die. 
The one word our Teacher and Preserver said, the other our 
enemy and destroyer. Bring him back again, the stray, the 
lost one ; bring him back, not with clubs and cudgels, not with 



198 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

halberts and halters, but generously and gently, and with the 
linking of the arm. In this posture shall God above smile 
upon ye ; in this posture of yours he shall recognize again his 
beloved Son upon earth. Do ye likewise, and depart in peace." 

— WiUiam had ended, and there was silence in the hall for 
some time after, when Sir Thomas said : " He spake unto 
somewhat mean persons, who may do it without disparage- 
ment. I look for authority, I look for doctrine, and find none 
yet. If he could not have drawn us out a thread or two from 
the coat of an apostle, he might have given us a smack of 
Augustine, or a sprig of Basil. Our older sermons are headier 
than these. Master Silas ; our new beer is the sweeter and 
clammier, and wants more spice. The doctor hath seasoned 
his with pretty wit enough (to do him justice), which in a 
sermon is never out of place ; for if there be the bane, there 
likewise is the antidote. What dost thou think about it, 
Master Silas?" 

Sir Silas. I would not give ten farthings for ten folios of 
such sermons. 

Shakspeare. These words, Master Silas, will oftener be 
quoted than any others of thine, but rarely (do I suspect) as 
applicable to Dr. Glaston. I must stick unto his gown. I 
must declare that, to my poor knowledge, many have been 
raised to the bench of bishops for less wisdom, and worse, than 
is contained in the few sentences I have been commanded by 
authority to recite. No disparagement to anybody ! I know. 
Master Silas, and multitudes bear witness, that thou above 
most art a dead hand at a sermon. 

Sir Silas. Touch my sermons, wilt dare? 

Shakspeare. Nay, Master Silas, be not angered: it is 
courage enough to hear them. 

Sir Thomas. Now, Silas, hold thy peace, and rest con- 
tented. He hath excused himself unto thee, throwing in a 
compliment far above his station, and not unworthy of Rome 
or Florence. I did not think him so ready. Our Warwick- 
shire lads are fitter for football than courtesies ; and, sooth to 
say, not only the inferior. 

— His worship turned from Master Silas toward William, 
and said, "Brave Willy, thou hast given us our bitters; we 
are ready now for anything solid. What hast left?" 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. I99 

Shakspeare. Little or nothing, sir. 

Sir Thomas. Well, give us that little or nothing. 

— William Shakspeare was obedient to the commands of Sir 
Thomas, who had spoken thus kindly unto him, and had deigned 
to cast at him from his " lordly dish " (as the Psalmist hath it) 
a fragment of facetiousness. 

Shakspeare. Alas, sir ! may I repeat it without offence, it 
not being doctrine but admonition, and meant for me only? 

Sir Thomas. Speak it the rather for that. 

Then did William give utterance to the words of the preacher, 
not indeed in his sermon at St. Mary's, but after dinner : — 

" Lust seizeth us in youth, ambition in midlife, avarice in 
old age ; but vanity and pride are the besetting sins that drive 
the angels from our cradle, pamper us with luscious and most 
unwholesome food, ride our first stick with us, mount our first 
horse with us, wake with us in the morning, dream with us in 
the night, and never at any time abandon us. In this world, 
beginning with pride and vanity, we are delivered over from 
tormentor to tormentor, until the worst tormentor of all taketh 
absolute possession of us forever, seizing us at the mouth of 
the grave, enchaining us in his own dark dungeon, standing at 
the door, and laughing at our cries. But the Lord, out of his 
infinite mercy, hath placed in the hand of every man the helm 
to steer his course by, pointing it out with his finger, and 
giving him strength as well as knowledge to pursue it. 

" William, William ! there is in the moral straits a current 
from right to wrong, but no reflux from wrong to right, — for 
which destination we must hoist our sails aloft and ply our oars 
incessantly, or night and the tempest will overtake us, and 
we shall shriek out in vain from the billows, and irrecoverably 
sink." 

"Amen!" cried Sir Thomas most devoutly, sustaining his 
voice long and loud. " Open that casement, good Silas ; the 
day is sultry for the season of the year ; it approacheth unto 
noontide. The room is close, and those blue flies do make a 
strange hubbub." 

Shakspeare. In troth do they, sir; they come from the 
kitchen, and do savor woundily of roast goose ! And, me- 
thinks — 

Sir Thomas. What bethinkest thou? 



200 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspeare. The fancy of a moment, — a light and vain 
one. 

Sir Thomas. Thou reUevest me ; speak it. 

Shakspeare. How could the creatures cast their coarse rank 
odor thus far, even into your presence ? A noble and spacious 
hall ! Charlecote, in my mind, beats Warwick Castle, and 
challenges Kenilworth. 

Sir Thomas. The hall is well enough, — I must say it is a 
noble hall, a hall for a queen to sit down in. And I stuffed an 
arm-chair with horse-hair on purpose, feathers over it, swan- 
down over them again, and covered it with scarlet cloth of 
Bruges, five crowns the short ell. But her Highness came not 
hither ; she was stopped short ; she had a tongue in her ear. 

Shakspeare. Where all is spring, all is buzz and murmur. 

Sir Thomas. Quaint and solid as the best yew-hedge ! I 
marvel at thee. A knight might have spoken it under favor. 
They stopped her at Warwick — to see what ? two old towers 
that don't match ! ^ Charlecote Hall, I could have told her 
sweet Highness, was built by those Lucies who came over with 
Julius Csesar and William the Conqueror, with cross and scal- 
lop-shell on breast and beaver. But, honest Willy — 

Such were the very words ; I wrote them down with two 
signs in the margent, — one a mark of admiration, as thus ( ! ) ; 
the other of interrogation (so we call it), as thus (? ). 

" But, honest Willy, I would fain hear more," quoth the 
knight, " about the learned Dr. Glaston. He seemeth to be a 
man after God's own heart." 

Shakspeare. Ay is he ! Never doth he sit down to dinner 
but he readeth first a chapter of the Revelation; and if he 
tasteth a pound of butter at Carfax, he saith a grace long 

enough to bring an appetite for a baked bull's zle.^ If 

this be not after God's own heart, I know not what is. 

1 Sir Thomas seems to have been jealous of these two towers, certainly 
the finest in England. If Warwick Castle could borrow the windows 
from Kenilworth, it would be complete. 

2 Another untoward blot I but leaving no doubt of the word. The 
only doubt is, whether he meant the mtizzle of the animal itself or one 
of those leathern muzzles which are often employed to coerce the vio- 
lence of animals. In besieged cities men have been reduced to such 
extremities. But the muzzle in this place would more properly be 
called the blinker, which is often put upon bulls in pastures when they 
are vicious. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 201 

Sir Thomas. I would fain confer with him, but that Oxford 
lieth afar off, — a matter of thirty miles, I hear. I might in- 
deed write unto him ; but our Warwickshire pens are mighty 
broad-nibbed, and there is a something in this plaguy ink of 
ours sadly ropy. 

" I fear there is," quoth Willy. 

" And I should scorn," continued his worship, " to write 
otherwise than in a fine Italian character, to the master of a 
college near in dignity to knighthood." 

Shakspeare. Worshipful sir, is there no other way of com- 
municating but by person, or writing, or messages ? 

Sir Thomas. I will consider and devise. At present I can 
think of none so satisfactory. 

— And now did the great clock over the gateway strike ; and 
Bill Shakspeare did move his lips, even as Sir Thomas had 
moved his erewhile in ejaculating. And when he had wagged 
them twice or thrice after the twelve strokes of the clock were 
over, again he ejaculated with voice also, saying, " Mercy upon 
us ! how the day wears ! Twelve strokes ! Might I retire, 
please your worship, into the chapel for about three quarters 
of an hour, and perform the service ^ as ordained ? " 

Before Sir Thomas could give him leave or answer, did Sir 
Silas cry aloud, " He would purloin the chalice, worth forty- 
eight shillings, and melt it down in the twinkling of an eye, he 
is so crafty." 

But the knight was more reasonable, and said, reprovingly, 
" There now, Silas, thou talkest widely, and verily in malice, 
if there be any in thee." 

"Try him," answered Master Silas; "I don't kneel where 
he does. Could he have but his wicked will of me he would 
chop my legs off, as he did the poor buck's." 

Sir Thomas. No, no, no ! he hath neither guile nor revenge 
in him. We may let him have his way, now that he hath taken 
the right one. 

Sir Silas. Popery, sheer popery, strong as hartshorn ! 
Your papists keep these outlandish hours for their Masses and 

1 Let not this countenance the opinion that Shakspeare was a Roman 
Catholic. His contempt of priests may have originated from the unfair- 
ness of Silas. Friars he treats kindly, perhaps in return for somewhat 
less services than Friar Lawrence's to Romeo. 



202 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

mummery. Surely we might let God alone at twelve o'clock ! 
Have we no bowels? 

Shakspeare. Gracious sir, I do not urge it ; and the time is 
now past by some minutes. 

Sir Thomas. Art thou popishly inclined, William ? 

Shakspeare. Sir, I am not popishly inclined ; I am not in- 
clined to pay tribute of coin or understanding to those who 
rush forward with a pistol at my breast, crying, " Stand, or you 
are a dead man ! " I have but one guide in faith, a powerful, 
an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away and vanish 
the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries 
pure hearts for its depositaries ; and I would rather take it 
from a friend and neighbor, intelligent and righteous and re- 
jecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in th^ pride 
of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what 
Christ gave me, — his own flesh and blood. I can repeat by 
heart what I read above a year agone, albeit I cannot bring to 
mind the title of the book in which I read it. These are the 
words : — 

"The most venal and sordid of all the superstitions that 
have swept and darkened our globe may indeed, like African 
locusts, have consumed the green corn in very extensive re- 
gions, and may return periodically to consume it; but the 
strong unwearied laborer who sowed it hath alway sown it in 
other places less exposed to such devouring pestilences. 
Those, cunning men who formed to themselves the gorgeous 
plan of universal dominion were aware that they had a better 
chance of establishing it than brute ignorance or brute force 
could supply, and that soldiers and their paymasters were sub- 
ject to other and powerfuller fears than the transitory ones of 
war and invasion. What they found in heaven they seized ; 
what they wanted they forged. 

" And so long as there is vice and ignorance in the world, so 
long as fear is a passion, their dominion will prevail ; but their 
dominion is not, and never shall be, universal. Can we 
wonder that it is so general ? Can we wonder that anything is 
wanting to give it authority and effect, when every learned, 
every prudent, every powerful, every ambitious man in Europe 
for above a thousand years united in the league to consoli- 
date it? 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 203 

" The old dealers in the shambles, where Christ's body is 
exposed for sale in convenient marketable slices, have not 
covered with blood and filth the whole pavement. Beautiful 
usages are remaining still, kindly affections, radiant hopes, and 
ardent aspirations ! 

" It is a comfortable thing to reflect — as they do, and as 
we may do unblamably — that we are uplifting to our Guide 
and Maker the same incense of the heart, and are uttering the 
very words, which our dearest friends in all quarters of the 
earth, nay in heaven itself, are oifering to the throne of grace 
at the same moment. 

"Thus are we together through the immensity of space. 
What are these bodies ? Do they unite us ? No ; they keep 
us apart and asunder even while we touch. Realms and 
oceans, worlds and ages, open before two spirits bent on 
heaven. What a choir surrounds us when we resolve to live 
imitedly and harmoniously in Christian faith ! " 

Sir Thomas. Now, Silas, what sayest thou? 

Sir Silas. Ignorant fool ! 

Shakspeare. Ignorant fools are bearable. Master Silas; 
your wise ones are the worst. 

Sir Thomas. Prythee no bandying of loggerheads. 

Shakspeare, — 

Or else what mortal man shall say 
Whose shins may suffer in the fray "i 

Sir Thomas. Thou reasonest aptly and timest well. And 
surely being now in so rational and religious a frame of mind, 
thou couldst recall to memory a section, or head or two, of 
the sermon holden at St. Mary's. It would do thee and us as 
much good as " Lighten our darkness," or " Forasmuch as it 
hath pleased ; " and somewhat less than three quarters of an 
hour (may-be less than one quarter) sufficeth. 

Sir Silas. Or he hangs without me. I am for dinner in 
half the time. 

Sir Thomas. Silas, Silas ! he hangeth not with thee or 
without thee. 

Sir Silas. He thinketh himself a clever fellow; but he 
(look ye) is the cleverest that gets off. 

"I hold quite the contrary," quoth Will Shakspeare, winking 



204 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

at Master Silas, from the comfort and encouragement he had 
just received touching the hanging. 

And Master Silas had his answer ready, and showed that he 
was more than a match for poor Willy in wit and poetry. He 
answered thus : — 

" If winks are wit, 
Who wanteth it ? 

Thou hadst other bolts to kill bucks withal. In wit, sirrah, 
thou art a mere child." 

Shakspeare. Little dogs are jealous of children, great ones 
fondle them. 

Sir Thomas. An that were written in the "Apocrypha," 
in the very teeth of Bel and the Dragon, it could not be truer. 
I have witnessed it with my own eyes, over and over. 

Sir Silas. He will take this for wit likewise, now the arms 
of Lucy do seal it. 

Sir Thomas. Silas, they may stamp wit, they may further 
wit, they may send wit into good company, but not make it. 

Shakspeare. Behold my wall of defence ! 

Sir Si/as. An thou art for walls, I have one for thee from 
Oxford, pithy and apposite, sound and solid, and trimmed up 
becomingly, as a collar of brawn with a crown ,of rosemary, or 
a boar's head with a lemon in the mouth. 

Shakspeare. Egad, Master Silas ! those are your walls for 
lads to climb over, an they were higher than Babel's. 

Sir Silas. Have at thee ! 

Thou art a wall 
To make the ball 
Rebound from. 

Thou hast a back 
For beadle's crack 

To sound from, to sound from. 

The foolishest dolts are the ground-plot of the most wit, as the 
idlest rogues are of the most industry. Even thou hast brought 
wit down from Oxford. And before a thief is hanged Parha- 
ment must make laws, attorneys must engross them, printers 
stamp and publish them, hawkers cry them, judges expound 
them, juries weigh and measure them with offences, then execu- 
tioners carry them into effect. The farmer hath already sown the 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 20$ 

hemp, the rope-maker hath twisted it ; sawyers saw the timber, 
carpenters tack together the shell, grave-diggers delve the earth. 
And all this truly for fellows like unto thee ! 

Shakspeare. Whom a God came down from heaven to 
save ! 

Sir Tho7nas. Silas, he hangeth not. William, I must 
have the heads of the sermon, six or seven of 'em ; thou hast 
whetted my appetite keenly. How ! dost duck thy pate into 
thy hat ? Nay, nay, that is proper and becoming at church ; we 
need not such solemnity. Repeat unto us the setting forth at 
St. Mary's. 

— Whereupon did William Shakspeare entreat of Master Silas 
that he would help him in his ghostly endeavors, by repeating 
what he called the preliminary prayer, — which prayer I find no- 
where in our ritual, and do suppose it to be one of those Latin 
supplications used in our learned universities, now or erewhile. 
I am afeard it hath not the approbation of the strictly or- 
thodox, for inasmuch as Master Silas at such entreaty did 
close his teeth against it, and with teeth thus closed did say, 
Athanasius-wise, " Go, and be damned ! " 

Bill was not disheartened, but said he hoped better, and be- 
gan thus : " ' My brethren ! ' said the preacher, ' or rather let 
me call you my children, — such is my age confronted with 
yours, for the most part : my children, then, and my brethren 
(for here are both), believe me, killing is forbidden.' " 

Sir Thomas. This, not being delivered unto us from the 
pulpit by the preacher himself, we may look into. Sensible 
man, shrewd reasoner, what a stroke against deer-stealers ! 
how full of truth and ruth ! Excellent discourse ! 

Shakspeare. The last part was the best. 

Sir Thomas. I always find it so. The softest of the cheese- 
cake is left in the platter when the crust is eaten. He kept 
the best bit for the last, then? He pushed it under the salt, 
eh ? He told thee — 

Shakspeare. Exactly so. 

Sir Thomas. What was it? 

Shakspeare. "Ye shall not kill." 

Sir Thomas. How ! did he run in a circle like a hare ? 
One of his mettle should break cover and off across the 
country, like a fox or hart. 



Z06 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspeare. " And yet ye kill time when ye can, and are 
uneasy when ye cannot." 

Whereupon did Sir Thomas say aside unto himself, but within 
my hearing, " Faith and troth ! he must have had a head in at 
the window here one day or other." 

Shakspeare. " This sin crieth unto the Lord." 

Sir Thomas. He was wrong there. It is not one of those 
that cry: mortal sins cry. Surely he could not have fallen 
into such an error ! it must be thine ; thou misunderstoodest 
him. 

Shakspeare. Mayhap, sir. A great heaviness came over 
me ; I was oppressed in spirit, and did feel as one awakening 
from a dream. 

Sir Thomas. Godlier men than thou art do often feel the 
right hand of the Lord upon their heads in like manner. It 
followeth contrition, and precedeth conversion. Continue. 

Shakspeare. " My brethren and children," said the teacher, 
" whenever ye want to kill time call God to the chase, and bid 
the angels blow the horn, and thus ye are sure to kill time to 
your heart's content. And ye may feast another day, and 
another after that — " 

— Then said Master Silas unto me concernedly, "This is 
the mischief- fullest of all the Devil's imps, to. talk in such wise 
at a quarter past twelve ! " But William went straight on, not 
hearing him : — 

" — upon what ye shall in such pursuit have brought home 
with you. Whereas, if ye go alone, or two or three together, 
nay, even if ye go in thick and gallant company, and yet pro- 
vide not that these be with ye, my word for it, and a power- 
fuller word than mine, ye shall return to your supper tired and 
jaded, and rest little when ye want to rest most." 

"Hast no other head of the doctor's? " quoth Sir Thomas. 

" Verily none," repUed Willy, "of the morning's discourse, 
saving the last words of it, which, with God's help, I shall al- 
ways remember." 

" Give us them, give us them ! " said Sir Thomas. " He 
wants doctrine, he wants authority. His are grains of millet, 
grains for unfledged doves ; but they are sound, except the 
crying. Deliver unto us the last words ; for the last of the 
preacher, as of the hanged, are usually the best." 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 20/ 

Then did William repeat the concluding words of the dis- 
course, being these : " As years are running past us, let us 
throw something on them which they cannot shake off in the 
dust and hurry of the world, but must carry with them to 
that great year of all, whereunto the lesser of this mortal life 
do tend and are subservient." 

Sir Thomas, after a pause, and after having bent his knee 
under the table, as though there had been the church- cushion, 
said unto us, " Here he spake through a glass, darkly, as 
blessed Paul hath it." 

Then turning toward Willy, ''And nothing more? " 

" Nothing but the glory," quoth Willy; "at which there is 
always such a clatter of feet upon the floor, and creaking of 
benches, and rustling of gowns, and bustle of bonnets, and 
justle of cushions, and dust of mats, and treading of toes, and 
punching of elbows from the spitefuUer, that one wishes to be 
fairly out of it, after the scramble for the peace of God is at 
an end — " 

Sir Thomas threw himself back upon his arm-chair, and ex- 
claimed in wonderment, " How ! " 

Shakspeare. — and in the midst of the service again, were it 
possible. For nothing is painfuUer than to have the pail shaken 
oif the head when it is brim-full of the waters of life, and we 
are walking staidly under it. 

Sir Thomas. Had the learned doctor preached again in 
the evening, pursuing the thread of his discourse, he might per- 
adventure have made up the deficiencies I find in him. 

Shakspeare. He had not that opportunity. 

Sir Thomas. The more 's the pity. 

Shakspeare. The evening admonition, delivered by him 
unto the household — 

Sir Thomas. What ! and did he indeed show wind enough 
for that ? Prythee out with it, if thou didst put it into thy 
tablets. 

Shakspeare. Alack, sir ! there were so many Latin words, 
I fear me I should be at fault in such attempt. 

Sir Thomas. Fear not ; we can help thee out between us, 
were there a dozen or a score. 

Shakspeare. Bating those Latinities, I do verily think I 
could tie up again most of the points in his doublet. 



208 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. At him, then ! What was his bearing? 

Shakspeare. In dividing his matter, he spooned out and 
apportioned the commons in his discourse as best suited the 
quahty, capacity, and constitution of his hearers. To those in 
priests' orders he dehvered a sort of catechism. 

Sir Silas. He catechise grown men ! He catechise men in 
priests' orders, being no bishop, nor bishop's ordinary ! 

Shakspeare. He did so ; it may be at his peril. 

Sir Thomas. And what else, for catechisms are baby's 
pap. 

Shakspeare. He did not catechise, but he admonished, the 
richer gentlemen with gold tassels for their top-knots. 

Sir Siias. I thought as much. It was no better in my 
time. Admonitions fell gently upon those gold tassels, and 
they ripened degrees as glass and sunshine ripen cucumbers. 
We priests, forsooth, are catechised ! The worst question to 
any gold tasseller is, "How do you do?" Old Alma Mater 
coaxes and would be coaxed; but let her look sharp, or 
spectacles may be thrust upon her nose that shall make her 
eyes water. Aristotle could make out no royal road to wis- 
dom ; but this old woman of ours will show you one, an you 
tip her. Tilley valley ! ^ catechise priests, indeed ! 

Sir Tho}?ias. Peradventure he did it discreetly. Let us 
examine and judge him. Repeat thou what he said unto 
them. 

Shakspeare. " Many," said he, " are ingenuous, many are 
devout, some timidly, some strenuously; but nearly all flinch 
and rear and kick at the slightest touch, or least inquisitive 
suspicion of an unsound part in their doctrine. And yet, my 
brethren, we ought rather to flinch and feel sore at our own 
searching touch, our own serious inquisition into ourselves. 
Let us preachers, who are sufficiently liberal in bestowing our 
advice upon others, inquire of ourselves whether the exercise 
of spiritual authority may not be sometimes too pleasant, tick- 
ling our breasts with a plume from Satan's wing, and turning 
our heads with that inebriating poison which he hath been 
seen to instil into the very chalice of our salvation. Let us 
ask ourselves in the closet, whether, after we have humbled 

1 " Tilley valley " was the favorite adjuration of James the Second. It 
appears in the comedies of Shakspeare. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 2O9 

ourselves before God in our prayers, we never rise beyond the 
due standard in the pulpit ; whether our zeal for the truth be 
never over-heated by internal fires less holy; whether we 
never grow stiffly and sternly pertinacious, at the very time 
when we are reproving the obstinacy of others ; and whether 
we have not frequently so acted as if we believed that opposi- 
tion were to be relaxed and borne away by self-sufficiency and 
intolerance. Believe me, the wisest of us have our catechism 
to learn; and these, my dear friends, are not the only ques- 
tions contained in it. No Christian can hate, no Christian can 
malign; nevertheless, do we not often both hate and malign 
those unhappy men who are insensible to God's mercies? 
And I fear this unchristian spirit swells darkly, with all its 
venom, in the marble of our hearts, — not because our brother 
is insensible to these mercies, but because he is insensible to 
our faculty of persuasion, turning a deaf ear unto our claim 
upon his obedience, or a blind or sleepy eye upon the fountain 
of light, whereof we deem ourselves the sacred reservoirs. 
There is one more question at which ye will tremble when ye 
ask it in the recesses of your souls (I do tremble at it, yet must 
utter it) , — Whether we do not more warmly and erectly 
stand up for God's word because it came from our mouths, 
than because it came from his? Learned and ingenious men 
may indeed find a solution and excuse for all these proposi- 
tions ; but the wise unto salvation will cry, ' Forgive me, O my 
God, if, called by thee to walk in thy way, I have not swept 
this dust from the sanctuary ! ' " 

Sir Thomas. All this, methinks, is for the behoof of clerks 
and ministers. 

Shakspeare. He taught them what they who teach others 
should learn and practise. Then did he look toward the young 
gentlemen of large fortune, and lastly his glances fell upon us 
poorer folk, whom he instructed in the duty we owe to our 
superiors. 

Sir Thomas. Ay, there he had a host. 

Shakspeare. In one part of his admonition he said : 
"Young gentlemen, let not the highest of you who hear me 
this evening be led into the delusion (for such it is) that the 
founder of his family was originally a greater or a better man 
than the lowest here. He willed it, and became it. He must 

14 



2IO CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

have stood low; he must have worked hard, and with tools 
moreover of his own invention and fashioning. He waved and 
whistled off ten thousand strong and importunate temptations ; 
he dashed the dice-box from the jewelled hand of Chance, the 
cup from Pleasure's, and trod under foot the sorceries of each ; 
he ascended steadily the precipices of Danger, and looked 
down with intrepidity from the summit; he overawed Arro- 
gance with Sedateness ; he seized by the horn and overleaped 
low Violence ; and he fairly swung Fortune round. 

" The very high cannot rise much higher, the very low may ; 
the truly great must have done it. 

" This is not the doctrine, my friends, of the silkenly and 
lawnly religious ; it wears the coarse texture of the fisherman, 
and walks uprightly and straightforward under it. I am speak- 
ing now more particularly to you among us upon whom God 
hath laid the encumbrances of wealth, the sweets whereof bring 
teasing and poisonous things about you, not easily sent away. 
What now are your pretensions under sacks of money, or your 
enjoyments under the shade of genealogical trees? Are they 
rational? Are they real? Do they exist at all? Strange in- 
consistency, to be proud of having as much gold and silver 
laid upon you as a mule hath, and yet to carry it less com- 
posedly ! The mule is not answerable for the* conveyance and 
discharge of his burden : you are. Stranger infatuation still, 
to be prouder of an excellent thing done by another than by 
yourselves, supposing any excellent thing to have actually been 
done ; and, after all, to be more elated on his cruelties than 
his kindnesses, — by the blood he hath spilt than by the benefits 
he hath conferred, — and to acknowledge less obligation to a 
well-informed and well-intentioned progenitor than to a lawless 
and ferocious barbarian ! Would stocks and stumps, if they 
could utter words, utter such gross stupidity? Would the 
apple boast of his crab origin, or the peach of his prune? 
Hardly any man is ashamed of being inferior to his ancestors, 
although it is the very thing at which the great should blush, if 
indeed the great in general descended from the worthy. I did 
expect to see the day, — and although I shall not see it, it 
must come at last, — when he shall be treated as a madman 
or an impostor who dares to claim nobility or precedency, and 
cannot show his family name in the history of his country. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 211 

Even he who can show it, and who cannot write his own under 
it in the same or as goodly characters, must submit to the im- 
putation of degeneracy, from which the lowly and obscure are 
exempt. 

"He alone who maketh you wiser, maketh you greater; 
and it is only by such an implement that Almighty God 
himself effects it. When he taketh away a man's wisdom, he 
taketh away his strength, his power over others, and over him- 
self. What help for him then ? He may sit idly and swell his 
spleen, saying, ' Who is this ? Who is that ? ' and at the ques- 
tion's end the spirit of inquiry dies away in him. It would not 
have been so if in happier hour he had said within himself, 
' Who am I ? What am I ? ' and had prosecuted the search in 
good earnest. 

" When we ask who this man is, or who that man is, we do 
not expect or hope for a plain answer; we should be dis- 
appointed at a direct, or a rational, or a kind one. We desire 
to hear that he was of low origin, or had committed some 
crime, or been subjected to some calamity. Whoever he be, 
in general we disregard or despise him, unless we discover that 
he possesseth by nature many qualities of mind and body which 
he never brings into use, and many accessories of situation and 
fortune which he brings into abuse every day. According to 
the arithmetic in practice, he who makes the most idlers and 
the most ingrates is the most worshipful. But wiser ones than 
the scorers in this school will tell you how riches and power 
were bestowed by Providence that generosity and mercy should 
be exercised : for if every gift of the Almighty were distributed 
in equal portions to every creature, less of such virtues would 
be called into the field ; consequently there would be less of 
gratitude, less of submission, less of devotion, less of hope, and 
in the total, less of content." 

— Here he ceased, and Sir Thomas nodded, and said, 
" Reasonable enough ! nay, almost too reasonable ! But where 
are the apostles? Where are the disciples? Where are the 
saints ? Where is hell-fire ? Well, patience ! we may come to 
it yet. Go on. Will ! " 

With such encouragement before him, did Will Shakspeare 
take breath and continue : " ' We mortals are too much accus- 
tomed to behold our superiors in rank and station as we behold 



212 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

the leaves in the forest. While we stand under these leaves, — 
our protection and refuge from heat and labor, — we see only 
the rougher side of them, and the gloominess of the branches 
on which they hang. In the midst of their benefits we are 
insensible to their utility and their beauty, and appear to be 
ignorant that if they were placed less high above us, we should 
derive from them less advantage.' " 

Sir Thomas. Ay ; envy of superiority made the angels kick 
and run restive. 

Shakspeare. May it please your worship, with all my faults, 
I have ever borne due submission and reverence toward my 
superiors. 

Sir Thomas. Very right ! very scriptural ! But most folks 
do that. Our duty is not fulfilled unless we bear absolute 
veneration; unless we are ready to lay down our lives and 
fortunes at the foot of the throne, and everything else at the 
foot of those who administer the laws under virgin majesty. 

Shakspeare. Honored sir, I am quite ready to lay down my 
life and fortune, and all the rest of me, before that great virgin. 

Sir Silas. Thy life and fortune, to wit ! What are they 
worth ? A June cob-nut, maggot and all. 

Sir Thomas. Silas, we will not repudiate nor rebuff his 
Magdalen, that bringeth a pot of ointment. ' Rather let us 
teach and tutor than twit. It is a tractable and conducible 
youth, being in good company. 

Sir Silas. Teach and tutor ! Hold hard, sir. These base 
varlets ought to be taught but two things, — to bow as beseem- 
eth them to their betters, and to hang perpendicular. We 
have authority for it, that no man can add an inch to his 
stature ; but by aid of the sheriff, I engage to find a chap who 
shall add two or three to this whoreson's.-^ 

Sir Thomas. Nay, nay, now, Silas ! the lad's mother was 
always held to be an honest woman. 

1 " Whoreson," if we may hazard a conjecture, means the son of a 
woman of ill-repute. In this we are borne out by the context. It ap- 
pears to have escaped the commentators on Shakspeare. 

" Whoreson," a word of frequent occurrence in the comedies ; more 
rarely found in the tragedies. Although now obsolete, the expression 
proves that there were (or were believed to be) such persons formerly. 

(The Editor is indebted to two learned friends for these two remarks, 
which appear no less just than ingenious.) 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 21 3 

Sir Silas. His mother may be an honest woman for me. 

Shakspeare. No small privilege, by my faith, for any wo- 
man in the next parish to thee, Master Silas ! 

Sir Silas. There again ! out comes the filthy runlet from 
the quagmire that but now lay so quiet with all its own in it. 

Shakspeare. Until it was trodden on by the ass that could 
not leap over it. These, I think, are the words of the fable. 

Sir Thomas. They are so. 

Sir Silas. What fable ? 

Sir Thomas. Tush ! don't press him too hard ; he wants 
not wit, but learning. 

Sir Silas. He wants a rope's end ; and a rope's end is not 
enough for him, unless we throw in the other. 

Sir Thomas. Peradventure he may be an instrument, a 
potter's clay, a type, a token. I have seen many young men, 
and none like unto him. He is shallow, but clear; he is 
simple, but ingenuous. 

Sir Silas. Drag the ford again then ! In my mind he is as 
deep as the big tankard ; and a mouthfal of rough burrage will 
be the beginning and end of it. 

Sir Thomas. No fear of that. Neither, if rightly reported 
by the youngster, is there so much doctrine in the doctor as we 
expected. He doth not dwell upon the main : he is worldly ; 
he is wise in his generation; he says things out of his own 
head. Silas, that can't hold ! We want props, — fulcrums, I 
think you called 'em to the farmers ; or was it stimulii7ns ? 

Sir Silas. Both very good words. 

Sir Thomas. I should be mightily pleased to hear thee dis- 
pute with that great don. 

Sir Silas. I hate disputations. Saint Paul warns us against 
them. If one wants to be thirsty, the tail of a stockfish is as 
good for it as the head of a logician. The doctor there at 
Oxford is in flesh and mettle ; but let him be sleek and gin- 
gered as he may, clap me in St. Mary's pulpit, cassock me, 
lamb-skin me, give me pink for my colors, glove me to the 
elbow, heel-piece me half an ell high, cushion me before and 
behind, bring me a mug of mild ale and a rasher of bacon, only 
just to con over the text withal, — then allow me fair play, and 
as much of my own way as he had, and the Devil take the 
hindermost. I am his man at any time. 



214 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. I am fain to believe it. Verily, I do think, 
Silas, thou hast as much stuff in thee as most men. Our 
beef and mutton at Charlecote rear other than babes and 
sucklings. I like words taken, like thine, from black-letter 
books. They look stiif and sterling, and as though a man 
might dig about 'em for a week, and never loosen the lightest. 
Thou hast alway at hand either saint or devil, as occasion 
needeth, according to the quality of the sinner, and they never 
come uncalled for. Moreover, Master Silas, I have observed 
that thy hell-fire is generally lighted up iii the pulpit about the 
dog-days. 

— Then turned the worthy knight unto the youth, saying, 
" 'Twere well for thee, William Shakspeare, if the learned doc- 
tor had kept thee longer in his house, and had shown unto thee 
the danger of idleness, which hath often led unto deer-stealing 
and poetry. In thee we already know the one, although the 
distemper hath eaten but skin-deep for the present ; and we 
have the testimony of two burgesses on the other. The pur- 
suit of poetry, as likewise of game, is unforbidden to persons 
of condition." 

Shakspeare. Sir, that of game is the more likely to keep 
them in it. 

Sir Tho7nas. It is the more knightly of- the two ; but 
poetry hath also her pursuers among us. I myself, in my 
youth, had some experience that way ; and I am fain to blush 
at the reputation I obtained. His honor, my father, took me 
to London at the age of twenty ; and sparing no expense in 
my education, gave fifty shillings to one Monsieur Dubois to 
teach me fencing and poetry in twenty lessons. In vacant 
hours he taught us also the laws of honor, which are diff"erent 
from ours. 

In France you are unpohte unless you solicit a judge or his 
wife to favor your cause ; and you inevitably lose it. In France 
there is no want of honor where there is no want of courage ; 
you may lie, but you must not hear that you lie. I asked him 
what he thought then of lying, and he replied, — 

" C'est selon." 

" And suppose you should overhear the whisper? " 

" Ah, parbleu ! Cela m'irrite, cela me pousse au bout.'i- 

I was going on to remark that a real man of honor could less 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 215 

bear to lie than to hear it ; when he cried, at the words " real 
man of honor," " Le voiia, Monsieur, le voila ! " and gave him- 
self such a blow on the breast as convinced me the French are 
a brave people. 

He told us that nothing but his honor was left him, but that 
it supplied the place of all he had lost. It was discovered 
some time afterward that Monsieur Dubois had been guilty of 
perjury, had been a spy, and had lost nothing but a dozen or 
two of tin patty-pans, hereditary in his family, his father hav- 
ing been a cook on his own account. 

William, it is well at thy time of life that thou shouldst 
know the customs of far countries, particularly if it should be 
the will of God to place thee in a company of players. Of all 
nations in the world, the French best understand the stage. 
If thou shouldst ever write for it (which God forbid !), copy 
them very carefully. Murders on their stage are quite deco- 
rous and cleanly. Few gentlemen and ladies die by violence 
who would not have died by exhaustion. For they rant and 
rave until their voice fails them, one after another ; and those 
who do not die of it, die consumptive. They cannot bear to 
see cruelty ; they would rather see any image than their own. 
These are not my observations, but were made by Sir Everard 
Starkeye, who likewise did remark to Monsieur Dubois that cats, 
if you hold them up to the looking-glass, will scratch you ter- 
ribly, and that the same fierce animal, as if proud of its cleanly 
coat and velvety paw, doth carefully put aside what other 
animals of more estimation take no trouble to conceal. 

"Our people," said Sir Everard, "must see upon the stage 
what they never could have imagined ; so the best men 
in the world would earnestly take a peep of hell through a 
chink, whereas the worser would skulk away." 

Do not thou be their caterer, William. Avoid the writing of 
comedies and tragedies. To make people laugh is uncivil, and 
to make people cry is unkind. And what, after all, are these 
comedies and these tragedies? They are what, for the benefit 
of all fiiture generations, I have myself described them, — 

The whimsies of wantons, and stories of dread 
That make the stout-hearted look under the bed. 

Furthermore, let me warn thee against the same on account 



2l6 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

of the vast charges thou must stand at. We Englishmen can- 
not find it in our hearts to murder a man without much diffi- 
culty, hesitation, and delay. We have little or no invention 
for pains and penalties ; it is only our acutest lawyers who have 
wit enough to frame them. Therefore it behooveth your tragedy 
man to provide a rich assortment of them, in order to strike 
the auditor with awe and wonder. And a tragedy man, in our 
country, who cannot afford a fair dozen of stabbed males, and 
a trifle under that mark of poisoned females, and chains enow 
to moor a whole navy in dock, is but a scurvy fellow at the 
best. Thou wilt find trouble in purveying these necessaries ; 
and then must come the gimcracks for the second course, — 
gods, goddesses, fates, furies, battles, marriages, music, and 
the maypole. Hast thou within thee wherewithal? 

" Sir," replied Billy, with great modesty, " I am most grate- 
ful for these ripe fruits of your experience. To admit delight- 
ful visions into my own twilight chamber is not dangerous nor 
forbidden. Believe me, sir, he who indulges in them will ab- 
stain from injuring his neighbor ; he will see no glory in peril, 
and no delight in strife. The world shall never be troubled 
by any battles and marriages of mine, and 1 desire no other 
music and no other maypole than have lightened my heart at 
Stratford." 

Sir Thomas, finding him well- conditioned and manageable, 
proceeded : " Although I have admonished thee of sundry and 
insurmountable impediments, yet more are lying in the path- 
way. We have no verse for tragedy. One in his hurry hath 
dropped rhyme, and walketh like unto the man who wanteth the 
lefl-leg stocking. Others can give us rhyme indeed, but can 
hold no longer after the tenth or eleventh syllable. Now, Sir 
Everard Starkeye, who is a pretty poet, did confess to Mon- 
sieur Dubois the potency of the French tragic verse, which thou 
never canst hope to bring over. 

" ' I wonder, Monsieur Dubois,' said Sir Everard, ' that your 
countrymen should have thought it necessary to transport their 
heavy artillery into Italy. No Italian could stand a volley of 
your heroic verses from the best and biggest pieces. With 
these brought into action, you never could have lost the battle 
of Pavia.' 

" Now, my friend Sir Everard is not quite so good a histo- 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 21/ 

rian as he is a poet ; and Monsieur Dubois took advantage of 
him. 

" ' Pardon, Monsieur Sir Everard,' said Monsieur Dubois, 
smiling at my friend's slip, 'we did not lose the battle of 
Pavia. We had the misfortune to lose our king, who delivered 
himself up, as our kings always do, for the good and glory of 
his country.' 

" ' How was this ? ' said Sir Everard, in surprise. 

" ' I will tell you, Monsieur Sir Everard,' said Monsieur 
Dubois. * I had it from my own father, who fought in the 
battle, and told my mother, word for word. The king, seeing 
his household troops, being only one thousand strong, sur- 
rounded by twelve regiments, the best Spanish troops, amount- 
ing to eighteen thousand four hundred and forty-two, although 
he doubted not of victory, yet thought he might lose many 
brave men before the close of the day, and rode up instantly 
to King Charles, and said, " My brother, I am loath to lose so 
many of those brave men yonder. Whistle off youi Spanish 
pointers, and I agree to ride home with you." And so he 
did. But what did King Charles? Abusing French loyalty, 
he made our Francis his prisoner — would you believe it ? — 
and treated him worse than ever badger was treated at the 
bottom of any paltry stable-yard, putting upon his table beer 
and Rhenish wine and wild boar.' 

" I have digressed with thee, young man," continued the 
knight, much to the improvement of my knowledge, I do rev- 
erentially confess, as it was of the lad's. "We will now," said 
he, " endeavor our best to sober thee, finding that Dr. Glaston 
hath omitted it." 

" Not entirely omitted it," said William, gratefully ; " he did, 
after dinner, all that could be done at such a time toward it. 
The doctor could, however, speak only of the Greeks and 
Romans, and certainly what he said of them gave me but little 
encouragement." 

Si'r Thomas. What said he? 

Shakspeare. He said, " The Greeks conveyed all their wis- 
dom into their theatre ; their stages were churches and parlia- 
ment-houses, — but what was false prevailed over what was true. 
They had their own wisdom, — the wisdom of the foohsh. 
Who is Sophocles, if compared to Dr. Hammersley of Oriel ; 



2l8 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

or Euripides, if compared to Dr. Prichard of Jesus ? Without 
the gospel, light is darkness ; and with it, children are giants. 

"William, I need not expatiate on Greek with thee, since 
thou knowest it not, but some crumbs of Latin are picked up 
by the callowest beaks. The Romans had, as thou findest, 
and have still, more taste for murder than morahty, and as 
they could not find heroes among them, looked for gladiators. 
Their only very high poet employed his elevation and strength 
to dethrone and debase the Deity. They had several others, 
who polished their language and pitched their instruments with 
admirable skill ; several who glued over their thin and flimsy 
gaberdines many bright feathers from the wide-spread downs 
of Ionia and the richly cultivated rocks of Attica. 

" Some of them have spoken from inspiration, for thou art 
not to suppose that from the heathen were withheld all the 
manifestations of the Lord. We do agree at Oxford that the 
PoUio of Virgil is our Saviour. True, it is the dullest and 
poorest poem that a nation not very poetical hath bequeathed 
unto us ; and even the versification, in which this master ex- 
celled, is wanting in fluency and sweetness. I can only account 
for it from the weight of the subject. Two verses, which are 
fairly worth two hundred such poems, are from another pagan ; 
he was forced to sigh for the Church without knowing her. 
He saith : — 

' May I gaze upon thee when my latest hour is come ! 
May I hold thy hand when mine faileth me ! ' 

This, if adumbrating the Church, is the most beautiful thought 
that ever issued from the heart of man ; but if addressed to a 
wanton, as some do opine, is filth from the sink, nauseating 
and insufferable. Wilham, that which moveth the heart most 
is the best poetry ; it comes nearest unto God, the source of 
all power." 

Sir Thomas. Yea, and he appeareth unto me to know 
more of poetry than of divinity. Those ancients have little 
flesh upon the body poetical, and lack the savor that sufificeth. 
The Song of Solomon drowns all their voices ; they seem but 
whistlers and guitar-players compared to a full-cheeked trum- 
peter, — they standing under the eaves in some dark lane, he 
upon a well-caparisoned stallion, tossing his mane and all his 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 219 

ribbons to the sun. I doubt the doctor spake too fondly of the 
Greeks; they were giddy creatures, WiUiam. I am loath to 
be hard on them, but tlaey please me not. There are those 
now living who could make them bite their nails to the quick, 
and turn green as grass with envy. 

Shakspeare. Sir, one of those Greeks, methinks, thrown 
into the pickle-pot, would be a treasure to the house-wife's 
young gherkins. 

Sir Thomas. Simpleton ! simpleton ! but thou valuest them 
justly. Now, attend. If ever thou shouldst hear, at Oxford or 
London, the verses I am about to repeat, prythee do not com- 
municate them to that fiery spirit Matt Atterend. It might not 
be the battle of two hundreds, but two counties, — a sort of 
York and Lancaster war, whereof I would wash my hands. 
Listen ! 

— And now did Sir Thomas clear his voice, always high and 
sonorous, and did repeat from the stores of his memory these 
rich and proud verses : — 

" Chloe, mean men must ever make mean loves ; 
They deal in dog-roses, but I in cloves. 
They are just scorched enough to blow their fingers, 
I am a phoenix downright burnt to cinders." 

At which noble conceits, so far above what poor Bill had 
ever imagined, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and exclaimed, 
"The world itself must be reduced to that condition before 
such glorious verses die ! Chloe and Clove .' Why sir, Chloe 
wants but a v toward the tail to become the very thing ! 
Never tell me that such matters can come about of themselves. 
And how truly is it said that we mean men deal in dog-roses ! 
Sir, if it were permitted me to swear on that holy Bible, I 
would swear I never until this day heard that dog-roses were 
our provender ; and yet did I, no longer ago than last sum- 
mer, write, not indeed upon a dog-rose, but upon a sweet- 
brier, what would only serve to rinse the mouth withal after 
the clove." 

Sir Thomas. Repeat the same, youth ! We may haply 
give thee our counsel thereupon. 

— Willy took heart, and lowering his voice, which hath 
much natural mellowness, repeated these from memory : — 



220 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

" My brier that smelledst sweet 
When gentle spring's first heat 

Ran through thy quiet veins ; 
Thou that wouldst injure none, 
But wouldst be left alone, — 
Alone thou leavest me, and nought of thine remains. 

" What ! hath no poet's lyre 
O'er thee, sweet-breathing brier, 

Hung fondly, ill or well ? 
And yet methinks with thee 
A poet's sympathy, 
Whether in weal or woe, in life or death, might dwell. 

" Hard usage both must bear, 
Few hands your youth will rear, 

Few bosoms cherish you. 
Your tender prime must bleed 
Ere you are sweet ; but freed 
From life, you then are prized. Thus prized are poets too." 

Sir Thomas said, with kind encouragement, "He who be- 
ginneth so discreetly with a dog-rose, may hope to encompass 
a damask-rose ere he die." 

Willy did now breathe freely. The commendation of a 
knight and magistrate worked powerfully within him ; and Sir 
Thomas said furthermore, " These short matters do not suit 
me. Thou mightest have added some moral about life and 
beauty ; poets never handle roses without one. But thou art 
young, and mayest get into the train." 

Willy made the best excuse he could, — and no bad one it 
was, the knight acknowledged ; namely, that the sweet-brier 
was not really dead, although left for dead. 

" Then," said Sir Thomas, " as life and beauty would not 
serve thy turn, thou mightest have had full enjoyment of the 
beggar, the wayside, the thieves, and the good Samaritan ; 
enough to tapestry the bridal chamber of an empress." 

William bowed respectfully, and sighed. 

" Ha ! thou hast lost them, sure enough, and it may not be 
quite so fair to smile at thy quandary," quoth Sir Thomas. 

" I did my best the first time," said Willy, " and fell short 
the second." 

" That indeed thou must have done," said Sir Thomas. 
" It is a grievous disappointment, in the midst of our lamenta- 
tions for the dead, to find ourselves balked. I am curious to 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 221 

see how thou couldst help thyself. Don't be abashed • I am 
ready for even worse than the last." 
Bill hesitated, but obeyed : — 

" And art thou yet alive ? 
And shall the happy hive 

Send out her youth to cull 
Thy sweets of leaf and flower, 
And spend the sunny hour 
With thee, and thy faint heart with murmuring music lull ? 

"Tell me what tender care. 
Tell me what pious prayer, 

Bade thee arise and live. 
The fondest-favored bee 
Shall whisper nought to thee 
More loving than the song my grateful muse shall give." 

Sir Thomas looked somewhat less pleased at the conclusion 
of these verses than at the conclusion of the former ; and said 
gravely, " Young man, methinks it is betimes that thou talkest 
of having a muse to thyself, or even in common with others. 
It is only great poets who have muses, — I mean to say who 
have the right to talk in that fashion. The French, I hear, 
Phoebus it and Muse-me it right and left ; and boggle not to 
throw all Nine, together with mother and master, into the com- 
pass of a dozen lines or thereabout. And your Italian can 
hardly do without 'em in the multipKcation-table. We English- 
men do let them in quietly, shut the door, and say nothing of 
what passes. I have read a whole book of comedies, and ne'er 
a muse to help the lamest." 

Shakspeare. Wonderful forbearance ! I marvel how the 
poet could get through. 

Sir Thomas. By God's help. And I think we did as well 
without 'em, for it must be an unabashable man that ever shook 
his sides in their company. They lay heavy restraint both upon 
laughing and crying. In the great master Virgil of Rome they 
tell me they come in to count the ships, and having cast up 
the sum total, and proved it, make off again. Sure token of 
two things : first, that he held 'em dog cheap ; secondly, that 
he had made but little progress (for a Lombard bom) in book- 
keeping at double entry. He, and every other great genius, be- 
gan with small subject-matters, — gnats and the like. I myself, 



222 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

similar unto him, wrote upon fruit. I would give thee some 
copies for thy copying, if I thought thou wouldst use them tem- 
perately, and not render them common, as hath befallen the 
poetry of some among the brightest geniuses. I could show 
thee how to say new things, and how to time the same. Before 
my day, nearly all the flowers and fruits had been gathered by 
poets, old and young, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop 
on the wall : roses went up to Solomon, apples to Adam, 
and so forth. Willy, my brave lad, I was the first that ever 
handled a quince, I '11 be sworn. Hearken ! 

Chloe ! I would not have thee wince 

That I unto thee send a quince. 

I would not have thee say unto 't 

" Begone !" and trample 't under foot, 

For, trust me, 't is no fulsome fruit. 

It came not out of mine own garden, 

But all the way from Henly in Arden, 

Of an uncommon fine old tree 

Belonging to John Asbury. 

And if that of it thou shalt eat 

'Twill make thy breath e'en yet more sweet ; 

As a translation here doth show, 

" On fruit-trees by Jean Mirabeau." 

The frontispiece is printed so. 

But eat it with some wine and cake, 

Or it may give the belly-ache.^ 

This doth my worthy clerk indite, 

I sign, 

Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight. 

Now, Willy, there is not one poet or lover in twenty who 
careth for consequences. Many hint to the lady what to do ; 
few what not to do, — although it would oftentimes, as in this 
case, go to one's heart to see the upshot. 

"Ah, sir ! " said Bill, in all humility, " I would make bold to 
put the parings of that quince under my pillow for sweet dreams 
and insights, if Dr. Glaston had given me encouragement to 
continue the pursuit of poetry. Of a surety it would bless me 
with a bedful of churches and crucifixions, duly adumbrated." 

Whereat Sir Thomas, shaking his head, did inform him, " It 

1 " Belly-ache," a disorder once not uncommon in England. Even the 
name is now almost forgotten ; yet the elder of us may remember at least 
the report of it, and some perhaps even the complaint itself, in our school- 
days. It usually broke out about the cherry season; and, in some cases, 
made its appearance again at the first nutting. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 223 

was in the golden age of the world, as pagans call it, that 
poets of condition sent fruits and flowers to their beloved, with 
posies fairly penned. We in our days have done the like. But 
manners of late are much corrupted on the one side, if not on 
both. Willy, it hath been whispered that there be those who 
would rather have a piece of brocade or velvet for a stomacher 
than the touchingest copy of verses, with a bleeding heart at 
the bottom." 

Shakspeare. Incredible ! 

Sir Thomas. 'T is even so ! , 

Shakspeare. They must surely be rotten fragments of the 
world before the flood, saved out of it by the Devil. 

Sir Thomas. I am not of that mind. Their eyes, mayhap, 
fell upon some of the bravery cast ashore from the Spanish 
Armada. In ancienter days, a few pages of good poetry out- 
valued a whole ell of the finest Genoa. 

Shakspeare. When will such days return? 

Sir Thomas. It is only within these few years that corrup- 
tion and avarice have made such ghastly strides. They always 
did exist, but were gentler. My youth is waning, and has 
been nigh upon these seven years, I being now in my forty- 
eighth. 

Shakspeare. I have understood that the god of poetry is 
in the enjoyment of eternal youth; I was ignorant that his 
sons were. 

Sir Thomas. No, child ; we are hale and comely, but must 
go the way of all flesh. 

Shakspeare. Must it, can it be ? 

Sir Thomas. Time was, my smallest gifts were acceptable, 
as thus recorded : — 

From my fair hand, oh will ye, will ye 
Deign humbly to accept a gilly- 

Flower for thy bosom, sugared maid ? 

Scarce had I said it, ere she took it, 
And in a twinkling, faith ! had stuck it 

Where e'en proud knighthood might have laid. 

— William was now quite unable to contain himself, and 
seemed utterly to have forgotten the grievous charge against 
him, to such a pitch did his joy o'erleap his jeopardy. 

Master Silas, in the mean time was much disquieted ; and 



224 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

first did he strip away all the white feather from every pen in 
the ink-pot, and then did he mend them, one and all, and then 
did he slit them with his thumb-nail, and then did he pare and 
slash away at them again, and then did he cut off the tops ; 
until at last he left upon them neither nib nor plume, nor 
enough of the middle to serve as quill to a virginal. It went 
to my heart to see such a power of pens so wasted, — there 
could not be fewer than five. Sir Thomas was less wary than 
usual, being overjoyed ; for great poets do mightily affect to 
have little poets under them, and little poets do forget them- 
selves in great company, — as fiddlers do, who hail-fellow-well- 
7fiet even with Lords. 

Sir Thomas did not interrupt our Bill's wild gladness. I 
never thought so worshipful a personage could bear so much. 
At last he said unto the lad : " I do bethink me if thou hearest 
much more of my poetry and the success attendant thereon, 
good Dr. Glaston would tear thy skirt off ere he could drag 
thee back from the occupation." 

Shakspeare. I fear me, for once, all his wisdom would sluice 
out in vain. 

Sir Thomas. It was reported to me that when our virgin 
Queen's Highness (her Dear Dread's^ ear not being then 
poisoned) heard these verses, she said before her courtiers, to 
the sore travail of some and heart's content of others, "We 
need not envy our young cousin James of Scotland his ass's 
bite of a thistle, having such flowers as these gilhflowers on the 
chimney-stacks of Charlecote." I could have told her High- 
ness that all this poetry, from beginning to end, was real 
matter of fact, well and truly spoken by mine own self. I had 
only to harness the rhymes thereunto, at my leisure. 

Shakspeare. None could ever doubt it. Greeks and Tro- 
jans may fight for the quince ; neither shall have it — 

While a Warwickshire lad 

Is on earth to be had, 

With a wand to wag 

On a trusty nag. 

He shall keep the lists 

With cudgel or fists ; 

And black shall be whose eye 

Looks evil on Lucy. 

1 Sir Thomas borrowed this expression from Spenser. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 22$ 

Sir Thomas. Nay, nay, nay ! do not trespass too soon up- 
on heroics. Thou seest thou canst not hold thy wind beyond 
eight Hnes. What wouldst thou do under the heavy mettle 
that should have wrought such wonders at Pavia, if thou findest 
these petards so troublesome in discharging? Surely the good 
doctor, had he entered at large on the subject, would have been 
very particular in urging this expostulation. 

Shakspeare. Sir, to my mortification I must confess that I 
took to myself the counsel he was giving to another, — a young 
gentleman who from his pale face, his abstinence at table, his 
cough, his taciturnity, and his gentleness, seemed already more 
than half poet. To him did Dr. Glaston urge, with all his zeal 
and judgment, many arguments against the vocation ; teUing 
him that even in college he had few applauders, being the first 
and not the second or third, who always are more fortunate ; 
reminding him that he must solicit and obtain much interest 
with men of rank and quality before he could expect their 
favor, and that without it the vein chilled, the nerve relaxed, 
and the poet was left at next door to the bellman. " In the 
coldness of the world," said he, "in the absence of ready 
friends and adherents to light thee upstairs to the richly tapes- 
tried chamber of the Muses, thy spirits will abandon thee, thy 
heart will sicken and swell within thee ; overladen, thou wilt 
make, O Ethelbert ! a slow and painful progress, and ere the 
door open, sink. Praise giveth weight unto the wanting, and 
happiness giveth elasticity unto the heavy. As the mightier 
streams of the unexplored world, America, run languidly in 
the night, 1 and await the sun on high to contend with him in 
strength and grandeur, so doth genius halt and pause in the 
thraldom of outspread darkness, and move onward with all his 
vigor then only when creative light and jubilant warmth sur- 
round him." 

Ethelbert coughed faintly ; a tinge of red the size of a rose- 
bud colored the middle of his cheek, and yet he seemed not 
to be pained by the reproof. He looked fondly and affection- 
ately at his teacher, who thus proceeded : — 

" My dear youth, do not carry the stone of Sisyphus on thy 
shoulder to pave the way to disappointment. If thou writest 
but indifferent poetry, none will envy thee and some will praise 

1 Humboldt notices this. 
15 



226 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

thee ; but Nature in her malignity hath denied unto thee a ca- 
pacity for the enjoyment of such praise. In this she hath been 
kinder to most others than to thee : we know wherein she hath 
been kinder to thee than to most others. If thou writest good 
poetry, many will call it flat, many will call it obscure, many 
will call it inharmonious, — and some of these will speak as 
they think ; for as in giving a feast to great numbers it is easier 
to possess the wine than to procure the cups, so happens it in 
poetry, — thou hast the beverage of thy own growth, but canst 
not find the recipients. What is simple and elegant to thee 
and me, to many an- honest man is flat and sterile ; what to us 
is an innocently sly allusion, to as worthy a one as either of us 
is dull obscurity; and that moreover which swims upon our 
brain, and which throbs against our temples, and which we de- 
light in sounding to ourselves when the voice has done with 
it, touches their ear, and awakens no harmony in any cell of 
it. Rivals will run up to thee and call thee a plagiary ; and 
rather than that proof should be wanting, similar words to 
some of thine will be thrown in thy teeth out of Leviticus and 
Deuteronomy. 

" Do you desire calm studies, do you desire high thoughts, — 
penetrate into theology. What is nobler than to dissect and 
discern the opinions of the gravest men upon the subtlest 
matters ? And what glorious victories are those over infidelity 
and scepticism? How much loftier, how much more lasting 
in their effects, than such as ye are invited unto by what this 
ingenious youth hath contemptuously and truly called 

' The swaggering drum, and trumpet hoarse with rage.' 

And what a delightful and edifying sight it is to see hundreds 
of the most able doctors, all stripped for the combat, each 
closing with his antagonist, and tugging and tearing, tooth and 
nail, to lay down and establish truths which have been floating 
in the air for ages, and which the lower order of mortals are 
forbidden to see, and commanded to embrace. And then the 
shouts of victory ! and then the crowns of amaranth held over 
their heads by the applauding angels ! Besides, these combats 
have other great and distinct advantages. Whereas in the 
carnal, the longer ye contend the more blows do ye receive, in 
these against Satan, the more fiercely and pertinaciously ye drive 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 227 

at him the slacker do ye find him ; every good hit makes him 
redden and rave with anger, but diminishes its effect. 

'•' My dear friends, who would not enter a service in which he 
may give blows to his mortal enemy, and receive none ; and in 
which not only the eternal gain is incalculable, but also the 
temporal at four-and-twenty may be far above the emolument 
of generals, who before the priest was born had bled profusely 
for their country, established her security, brightened her glory, 
and augmented her dominions?" 

— At this pause did Sir Thomas turn unto Sir Silas, and asked, 
" What sayest thou, Silas? " 

Whereupon did Sir Silas make answer ; " I say it is so, and 
was so, and should be so, and shall be so. If the queen's 
brother had not sopped the priests and bishops out of the 
Catholic cup, they could have held the Cathohc cup in their 
own hands, instead of yielding it into his. They earned their 
money : if they sold their consciences for it, the business is 
theirs, not ours. I call this facing the Devil with a vengeance. 
We have their coats, no matter who made 'em ; we have 'em, 
I say, and we will wear 'em ; and not a button, tag, or tassel, 
shall any man tear away." 

Sir Thomas then turned to Willy, and requested him to pro- 
ceed with the doctor's discourse, who thereupon continued : 

" ' Within your own recollection, how many good, quiet, in- 
offensive men, unendowed with any extraordinary abilities, have 
been enabled, by means of divinity, to enjoy a long life in tran- 
quillity and affluence ? ' 

"Whereupon did one of the young gentlemen smile, and 
on small encouragement from Dr. Glaston to enounce the 
cause thereof, he repeated these verses, which he gave after- 
ward unto me : — 

" ' In the names on our books 

Was standing Tom Flooke's, 
Who took in due time his degrees ; 

Which when he had taken, 

Like Ascham or Bacon, 
By night he could snore, and by day he could sneeze. 

" ' Calm, pithy, pragmatical,^ 
Tom Flooke he could at a call 

1 " Pragmatical " here means only " precise." 



228 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Rise up like a hound from his sleep ; 

And if many a quarto 

He gave not his heart to, 
If pellucid in lore, in his cups he was deep. 

" ' He never did harm, 

And his heart might be warm, 
For his doublet most certainly was so : 

And now has Tom Flooke 

A quieter nook 
Than ever had Spenser or Tasso. 

" * He lives in his house , 

As still as a mouse 
Until he has eaten his dinner ; 

But then doth his nose 

Outroar all the woes 
That encompass the death of a sinner. 

" ' And there oft has been seen 

No less than a dean 
To tarry a week in the parish. 

In October and March, 

When deans are less starch, 
And days are less gleamy and garish. 

" * That Sunday Tom's eyes 

Looked alway more wise. 
He repeated more often his text ; 

Two leaves stuck together 

(The fault of the weather), 
And — the rest ye shall hear in my next. 

" ' At mess he lost quite 

His small appetite. 
By losing his friend the good dean : 

The cook's sight must fail her ! 

The eggs sure are staler ! 
The beef too ! Why, what can it mean ? 

" ' He turned off the butcher ; 

To the cook, could he clutch her. 
What his choler had done there's no saying — 

'T is verily said 

He smote low the cock's head. 
And took other pullets for laying.' " 

"On this being concluded, Dr. Glaston said he shrewdly 
suspected an indigestion on the part of Mr. Thomas Flooke, 
caused by sitting up late and studying hard with Mr. Dean ; 
and he protested that theology itself should not carry us into 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 229 

the rawness of the morning air, particularly in such critical 
months as March and October, in one of which the sap rises, 
in the other sinks, and there are many stars very sinister." 

— Sir Thomas shook his head, and declared he would not be 
uncharitable to rector or dean or doctor, but that certain sur- 
mises swam uppermost. He then winked at Master Silas, who 
said incontinently, — 

" You have it. Sir Thomas ! The blind buzzards, with their 
stars and saps ! " 

"Well, but Silas, you yourself have told us over and over 
again, in church, that there are arcana.^'' 

" So there are ; I uphold it ! " rephed Master Silas ; " but a 
fig for the greater part, and a fig-leaf for the rest ! As for 
these signs, they are as plain as any page in the Revelation." 

Sir Thomas, after short pondering, said scoffingly : " In re- 
gard to the rawness of the air having any effect whatsoever on 
those who discourse orthodoxically on theology, it is quite as 
absurd as to imagine that a man ever caught cold in a Protes- 
tant church. I am rather of opinion that it was a judgment 
on the rector for his evil-mindedness toward the cook, the 
Lord foreknowing that he was about to be wilful and vengeful 
in that quarter. It was however more advisedly that he took 
other pullets, on his own view of the case, although it might be 
that the same pullets would suit him again as well as ever 
when his appetite should return ; for it doth not appear that 
they were loath to lay, but laid somewhat unsatisfactorily. 

"Now, youth," continued his worship, "if in our clemency 
we should spare thy life, study this higher elegiacal strain 
which thou hast carried with thee from Oxford ; it containeth, 
over and above an unusual store of biography, much sound 
moral doctrine for those who are heedful in the weighing of it. 
And what can be more affecting than — 

'At mess he lost quite 
His small appetite, 
By losing his friend the good dean'? 

And what an insight into character ! Store it up, store it up ! 
Small appetite, particular; good dean, generic." 

Hereupon did Master Silas jerk me with his indicative joint, 
the elbow to wit, and did say in my ear : " He means deanery. 



230 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Give me one of those bones so full of marrow, and let my lord 
bishop have all the meat over it and welcome. If a dean is 
not on his stilts, he is not on his stumps ; he stands on his own 
ground, — he is a noli-me-tangeretarian.^'' 

"What art thou saying of those sectaries, good Master 
Silas? " quoth Sir Thomas, not hearing him distinctly. 

" I was talking of the dean," replied Master Silas. " He 
was the very dean who wrote and sang that song called the 
'Two Jacks.' " 

"Hast it?" asked he. 

Master Silas shook his head, and trying in vain to recollect 
it, said at last, "After dinner it sometimes pops out of a 
filbert-shell in a crack ; and I have known it float on the first 
glass of Herefordshire cider. It also hath some affinity with 
very stiff and old bottled beer ; but in a morning it seemeth 
unto me like a remnant of over-night." 

" Our memory waneth. Master Silas," quoth Sir Thomas, 
looking seriously. " If thou couldst repeat it, without the 
grimace of singing, it were not ill." 

Master Silas struck the table with his fist, and repeated the 
first stave angrily ; but in the second he forgot the admonition 
of Sir Thomas, and did sing outright, — 

" Jack Calvin and Jack Cade, 
Two gentles of one trade, — 

Two tinkers, — 
Very gladly would pull down 
Mother Church and Father Crown, 
And would starve or would drown 

Right thinkers. 

Honest man 1 honest man ! 

Fill the can, fill the can. 
They are coming ! they are coming ! they are coming ! 

If any drop be left, 

It might tempt 'em to a theft — 
Zooks ! 't was only the ale that was humming." 

" In the first stave, gramercy ! there is an awful verity," 
quoth Sir Thomas ; " but I wonder that a dean should let his 
skewer slip out and his fat catch fire so wofully in the second. 
Light stuff, Silas, fit only for ale-houses." 

Master Silas was nettled in the nose, and answered, " Let 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 23 1 

me see the man in Warwickshire, and in all the counties 
round, who can run at such a rate with so light a feather in the 
palm of his hand. I am no poet, thank God ! but I know 
what folks can do, and what folks cannot do." 

"Well, Silas," replied Sir Thomas, "after thy thanksgiving 
for being no poet, let us have the rest of the piece." 

"The rest!" quoth Master Silas. "When the ale hath 
done with its humming, it is time, methinks, to dismiss it. Sir, 
there never was any more : you might as well ask for more 
after Amen or the See of Canterbury." 

Sir Thomas was dissatisfied, and turned off the discourse ; 
and peradventure he grew more inclined to be gracious unto 
Willy from the slight rub his chaplain had given him, were it 
only for the contrariety. When he had collected his thoughts, 
he was determined to assert his supremacy on the score of 
poetry. 

"Deans, I perceive, like other quality," said he, "cannot run 
on long together. My friend, Sir Everard Starkeye, could 
never over-leap four bars. I remember but one composition of 
his, on a young lady who mocked at his inconsistency in call- 
ing her sometimes his Grace and at other times his Muse, — 

' My Grace shall Fanny Carew be, 
While here she deigns to stay ; 

And (ah, how sad the change for me !) 
My Muse when far away ! ' 

And when we laughed at him for turning his back upon her 
after the fourth verse, all he could say for himself was, that he 
would rather a game at all fours with Fanny, than ombre and 
picquet with the finest furbelows in Christendom. Men of con- 
dition do usually want a belt in the course." 

Whereunto said Master Silas, " Men out of condition are 
quite as liable to lack it, methinks." 

"Silas, Silas," repHed the knight, impatiently, "prythee 
keep to thy divinity, thy stronghold upon Zion ; thence none 
that faces thee can draw thee without being bitten to the bone. 
Leave poetry to me ! " 

"With all my heart," quoth Master Silas ; " I will never ask 
a belt from her, until I see she can afford to give a shirt. She 
has promised a belt indeed, not one however that doth much 



232 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

improve the wind to tliis lad here, and will keep her word ; 
but she was forced to borrow the pattern from a Carthusian 
friar, and somehow it slips above the shoulder." 

" I am by no means sure of that," quoth Sir Thomas. " He 
shall have fair play. He carrieth in his mind many valuable 
things, whereof it hath pleased Providence to ordain him the 
depositary. He hath laid before us certain sprigs of poetry 
from Oxford trim as pennyroyal, and larger leaves of house-- 
hold divinity the most mildly- savored, — pleasant in health, 
and wholesome in sickness." 

"I relish not such mutton-broth divinity," said Master Silas. 
"It makes me sick in order to settle my stomach." 

"We may improve it," said the knight; "but first let us 
hear more." 

Then did William Shakspeare resume Dr. Glaston's dis- 
course. 

" ' Ethelbert, I think thou walkest but little ; otherwise I 
should take thee with me, some fine fresh morning, as far as 
unto the first hamlet on the Cherwell. There lies young 
Wellerby, who the year before was wont to pass many hours 
of the day poetizing amid the ruins of Godstow nunnery. It 
is said that he bore a fondness toward a young maiden in 
that place, — formerly a village, now containing but two old 
farm-houses. In my memory there were still extant several 
dormitories. Some love-sick girl had recollected an ancient 
name, and had engraven on a stone with a garden-nail, which 
lay in rust near it, — 

POORE ROSAMUND. 

I entered these precincts, and beheld a youth of manly form 
and countenance washing and wiping a stone with a handful 
of wet grass ; and on my going up to him and asking what he 
had found, he showed it to me. The next time I saw him was 
near the banks of the Cherwell. He had tried, it appears, to 
forget or overcome his fooUsh passion, and had applied his 
whole mind unto study. He was foiled by his competitor; 
and now he sought consolation in poetry. Whether this 
opened the wounds that had closed in his youthful breast, and 
malignant Love in his revenge poisoned it; or whether the 
disappointment he had experienced in finding others preferred 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 233 

to him, first in the paths of fortune, then in those of the 
muses, — he was thought to have died broken-hearted. 

" ' About half a mile from St. John's College is the termina- 
tion of a natural terrace, with the Cherwell close under it, in 
some places bright with yellow and red flowers glancing and 
glowing through the stream, and suddenly in others dark 
with the shadows of many different trees, in broad overbend- 
ing thickets, and with rushes spear-high, and party-colored 
flags. 

" 'After a walk in midsummer the immersion of our hands 
into the cool and closing grass is surely not the least among 
our animal delights. I was just seated, and the first sensation 
of rest vibrated in me gently, as though it were music to the 
limbs, when I discovered by a hollow in the herbage that an- 
other was near. The long meadow-sweet and blooming bumet 
half concealed from me him whom the earth was about to hide 
totally and forever. "Master Batchelor," said I, "it is ill 
sleeping by the water-side." 

" ' No answer was returned. I arose, went to the place, and 
recognized poor Wellerby. His brow was moist, his cheek 
was warm. A few moments earlier and that dismal lake where- 
unto and wherefrom the waters of life, the buoyant blood, ran 
no longer, might have received one vivifying ray reflected from 
my poor casement. I might not indeed have comforted, — I 
have often failed ; but there is one who never has, and the 
strengthener of the bruised reed should have been with us. 

" ' Remembering that his mother did abide one mile farther 
on, I walked forward to the mansion, and asked her what tid- 
ings she lately had received of her son. She replied that, 
having given up his mind to light studies, the fellows of the 
college would not elect him. The master had warned him be- 
forehand to abandon his selfish poetry, take up manfully the 
quarterstaff" of logic and wield it fpr St. John's, come who 
would into the ring. " ' We want our man,' said he to me, 
' and your son hath failed us in the hour of need. Madam, he 
hath been foully beaten in the schools by one he might have 
swallowed, with due exercise.' I rated him, told him I was 
poor, and he knew it. He was stung, and threw himself upon 
my neck and wept. Twelve days have passed since, and only 
three rainy ones. I hear he has been seen upon the knoll 



234 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

yonder, but hither he hath not come. I trust he knows at last 
the value of time, and I shall be heartily glad to see him after 
this accession of knowledge. Twelve days, it is true, are 
rather a chink than a gap in time; yet, O gentle sir, they 
are that chink which makes the vase quite valueless. There 
are light words which may never be shaken off the mind they 
fall on. My child, who was hurt by me, will not let me see the 
marks." "Lady," said I, "none are left upon him. Be com- 
forted, thou shalt see him this hour. All that thy God hath 
not taken is yet thine." 

" ' She looked at me earnestly, and would have then asked 
something, but her voice failed her. There was no agony, no 
motion, save in the lips and cheeks. Being the widow of one 
who fought under Hawkins, she remembered his courage and 
sustained the shock, saying calmly, " God's will be done ! I 
pray that he find me as worthy as he findeth me willing to join 
them." 

" ' Now, in her unearthly thoughts she had led her only son 
to the bosom of her husband ; and in her spirit (which often is 
permitted to pass the gates of death with holy love) she left 
them both with their Creator. 

" ' The curate of the village sent those who should bring 
home the body ; and some days afterward he came unto me, 
beseeching me to write the epitaph. Being no friend to stone- 
cutter's charges, I entered not into biography, but wrote these 
few words : — 

JOANNES WELLERBY 
LTTERARUM QUiESIVIT GLORIAM, 
VIDET DEI. ' " 

"Poor tack, poor tack!" sourly quoth Master Silas. "If 
your wise doctor could say nothing more about the fool, who 
died like a rotten sheep among the darnels, his Latin might 
have held out for the father, and might have told people he 
was as cool as a cucumber at home, and as hot as pepper in 
battle. Could he not find room enough on the whinstone to tell 
the folks of the village how he played the devil among the dons, 
burning their fingers when they would put thumbscrews upon 
us, punching them in the weasand as a blacksmith punches 
a horse-shoe, and throwing them overboard Uke bilgewater? 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 235 

Has Oxford lost all her Latin? Here is no capitani filius ; 
no more mention of family than a Welshman would have al- 
lowed him ; no Mc jacet ; and, worse than all, the devil a tittle 
of spe redemptionis or anno Dojninir 

" Willy," quoth Sir Thomas, " I shrewdly do suspect there 
was more, and that thou hast forgotten it." 

" Sir," answered Willy, " I wrote not down the words, fearing 
to mis-spell them, and begged them of the doctor when I took 
my leave of him on the morrow ; and verily he wrote down all 
he had repeated. I keep them always in the tin-box in my 
waistcoat-pocket, among the eel-hooks, on a scrap of paper a 
finger's length and breadth, folded in the middle to fit. And 
when the eels are running, I often take it out and read it be- 
fore I am aware. I could as soon forget my own epitaph as 
this." 

" Simpleton ! " said Sir Thomas, with his gentle compassion- 
ate smile ; '' but thou hast cleared thyself." 

Sir Silas. I think the doctor gave one idle chap as much 
solid pudding as he could digest, with a slice to spare for 
another. 

Shakspeare. And yet after this pudding the doctor gave 
him a spoonful of custard, flavored with a little bitter, which 
was mostly left at the bottom for the other idle chap. 

— Sir Thomas not only did endure this very good-naturedly, 
but deigned even to take in good part the smile upon my coun- 
tenance, as though he were a smile-collector, and as though his 
estate were so humble that he could hold his laced-bonnet (in 
all his bravery) for bear and fiddle. 

He then said unto Willy, " Place likewise this custard before 
us." 

" There is but little of it ; the platter is shallow," replied he ; 
" 't was suited to Master Ethelbert's appetite. The contents 
were these : — 

" ' The things whereon thy whole soul brooded in its inner- 
most recesses, and with all its warmth and energy, will pass un- 
prized and unregarded, not only throughout thy lifetime, but 
long after. For the higher beauties of poetry are beyond the 
capacity, beyond the vision, of almost all. Once perhaps in 
half a century a single star is discovered, then named and 
registered, then mentioned by five studious men to five more ; 



236 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

at last some twenty say, or repeat in writing, what they have 
heard about it. Other stars await other discoveries. Few and 
soHtary, and wide asunder, are those who calculate their relative 
distances, their mysterious influences, their glorious magnitude, 
and their stupendous height. 'T is so, believe me, and ever 
was so, with the truest and best poetry. Homer, they say, was 
blind : he might have been ere he died. That he sat among 
the blind we are sure. Happy they who, like this yoimg lad 
from Stratford, write poetry on the saddle-bow when their 
geldings are jaded, and keep the desk for better purposes.' 

" The young gentlemen, hke the elderly, all turned their 
faces toward me, to my confusion, so much did I remark of 
sneer and scoff at my cost. Master Ethelbert was the only one 
who spared me. He smiled and said : ' Be patient ! From 
the higher heavens of poetry, it is long before the radiance of 
the brightest star can reach the world below. We hear that 
one man finds out one beauty, another man finds out another, 
placing his observatory and instruments on the poet's grave. 
The worms must have eaten us before it is rightly known what 
we are. It is only when we are skeletons that we are boxed 
and ticketed and prized and shown. Be it so ! I shall not be 
tired of waiting.' " 

" Reasonable youth ! " said Sir Thomas ; '^ yet both he and 
Glaston walk rather astraddle, methinks. They might have 
stepped up to thee more straightforwardly, and told thee the 
trade ill suiteth thee, having little fire, little fantasy, and little 
learning. Furthermore that one poet, as one bull, sufficeth 
for two parishes ; and that where they are stuck too close to- 
gether they are apt to fire, like hay- stacks. I have known it 
myself; I have had my malignants and scoffers." 

Shakspeare. I never could have thought it. 

Sir Thomas. There again ! Another proof of thy in- 
experience. 

Shakspeare. Matt Atterend ! Matt Atterend ! where wert 
thou sleeping? 

Sir Thomas. I shall now from my own stores impart unto 
thee what will avail to tame thee, showing the utter hopeless- 
ness of standing on that golden weathercock which supporteth 
but one at a time. 

The passion for poetry wherewith Monsieur Dubois would 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 237 

have inspired me, as he was bound to do, being paid before- 
hand, had cold water thrown upon it by that unlucky one, Sir 
Everard. He ridiculed the idea of male and female rhymes, 
and the necessity of trying them as rigidly by the eye as by the 
ear, — saying to Monsieur Dubois that the palate, in which the 
French excel all mortals, ought also to be consulted in their ac- 
ceptance or rejection. Monsieur Dubois told us that if we did 
not wish to be taught French verse, he would teach us EngUsh. 
Sir Everard preferred the Greek ; but Monsieur Dubois would 
not engage to teach the mysteries of that poetry in fewer than 
thirty lessons, having (since his misfortunes) forgotten the 
letters and some other necessaries. 

The first poem I ever wrote was in the character of a shep- 
herd, to Mistress Anne Nanfan, daughter of Squire Fulke Nan- 
fan, of Worcestershire, at that time on a visit to the worshipful 
family of Comptcfti at Long Compton. We were young crea- 
tures, — I but twenty-four and seven months (for it was written 
on the 14th of May), and she well-nigh upon a twelvemonth 
younger. My own verses (the first) are neither here nor there ; 
indeed they were imbedded in solid prose, like lampreys and 
ram's-homs in our limestone, and would be hard to get out whole. 
What they are may be seen by her answer, all in verse : — 

Faithful shepherd ! dearest Tommy ! 
I have received the letter from ye, 

And mightily delight therein. 
But mother, s^e says, " Nanny ! Nanny 1 
How, being staid and prudent, can ye 

Think of a man, and not of sin ? " 

Sir Shepherd ! I held down my head. 
And " Mother ! fie for shame ! " I said. 

All I could say would not content her ; 
Mother she would forever harp on 't, 
A man 'j no better than a sarpent. 

And not a crumb more innocenter" 

I know not how it happeneth, but a poet doth open before 
a poet, albeit of baser sort. It is not that I hold my poetry to 
be better than some other in time past ; it is because I would 
show thee that I was virtuous and wooed virtuously, that I re- 
peat it. Furthermore, I wished to leave a deep impression on 
the mother's mind that she was exceedingly wrong in doubting 
my innocence. 



238 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Shakspeare. Gracious Heaven ! and was this too doubted ? 

Sir Thomas. May be not ; but the whole race of men, the 
whole male sex, wanted and found in me a protector. I showed 
her what I was ready to do. 

Shakspeare. Perhaps, sir, it was for that very thing that she 
put the daughter back and herself forward. 

Sir Thomas. I say not so, but thou mayest know as much 
as befitteth, by what follows : — 

Worshipful lady ! honored madam ! 
I at this present truly glad am 

To have so fair an opportunity 
Of saying I would be the man 
To bind in wedlock Mistress Anne, 

Living with her in holy unity. 

And for a jointure I will gi'e her 
A good two hundred pounds a-year • 

Accruing from my landed rents, 
Whereof see t'other paper, telling 
Lands, copses, and grown woods for felling. 

Capons, and cottage tenements, — 

And who must come at sound of horn, 
And who pays but a barley-corn, 

And who is bound to keep a whelp, 
And what is brought me for the pound, , 
And copyholders which are sound, 

And which do need the leech's help. 

And you may see in these two pages 
Exact their illnesses and ages. 

Enough (God willing) to content ye : 
Who looks full red, who looks full yellow. 
Who plies the mullein, who the mallow, 

Who fails at fifty, who at twenty. 

Jim Yates must go I He 's one day very hot 
And one day ice ; I take a heriot ; 

And poorly, poorly 's Jacob Burgess : 
The doctor tells me he has poured 
Into his stomach half his hoard 

Of anthelminticals and purges. 

Judith, the wife of Ebenezer 

Fillpots, won't have him long to tease her ; 

Fillpots blows hot and cold like Jim, 
And, sleepless lest the boys should plunder 
His orchard, he must soon knock under ; 

Death has been looking out for him. 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 239 

He blusters ; but his good yard-land 
Under the church, his ale-house, and 

His Bible, which he cut in spite, 
Must all fall in ; he stamps and swears 
And sets his neighbors by the ears — 

Fillpots 1 thy saddle sits not tight ! 

Thy epitaph is ready : " Here 

Lies 07te whom all his friends did fear 

More than they ever feared the Lord ; 
In peace he was at times a Christian ; 
In strife what stubborner Philistian I 

Sing, sing his psalm with one accord." 

And the brave lad who sent the bluff 
Olive-faced Frenchman (sure enough) 

Screaming and scouring like a plover, 
Must follow ; him I mean who dashed 
Into the water, and then thrashed 

The cullion past the town of Dover. 

But first there goes the blear old dame 
"Who nursed me ; you have heard her name 

(No doubt) at Compton, — Sarah Salways; 
There are twelve groats at once, beside 
The frying-pan in which she fried 
Her pancakes. 

Madam, I am always (etc.), 

Sir Thomas Lucy, Knight. 

I did believe that such a clear and conscientious exposure 
of my affairs would have brought me a like return. My letter 
was sent back to me with small courtesy. It may be there was 
no paper in the house, or none equalling mine in whiteness. 
No notice was taken of the rent-roll ; but between the second 
and third stanza these four lines were written, in a very fine 

hand : — 

" Most honored knight, Sir Thomas ! two 
For merry Nan will fPever do ; 
Now, under favor let me say 't, 
She will bring more herself than that." 

I have reason to believe that the worthy lady did neither write 
nor countenance the same, perhaps did not ever know of them. 
She always had at her elbow one who jogged it when he lis- 
ted, and although he could not overrule the daughter, he took 
especial care that none other should remove her from his tute- 
lage, even when she had fairly grown up to woman's estate. 



24C5 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Now, after all this condescension and confidence, promise 
me, good lad, promise that thou wilt not edge and elbow me. 
Never let it be said, when people say, " Sir Thomas was a 
poet when he willed it ; so is Bill Shakspeare ! " It beseem- 
eth not that our names do go together cheek by jowl in this 
familiar fashion, like an old beagle and a whelp, in couples, 
where if the one would, the other would not. 

Sir Silas. Sir, while these thoughts are passing in your 
mind, remember there is another pair of couples out of which 
it would be as well to keep the cur's neck. 

Sir Thomas. Young man, dost thou understand Master 
Silas ? 

Shakspeare. But too well. Not those couples in which it 
might be apprehended that your worship and my unworthiness 
should appear too close together ; but those sorrowfuller which 
peradventure might unite Master Silas and me in our road to 
Warwick and upward. But I resign all right and title unto 
these as willingly as I did unto the other, and am as ready to 
let him go alone. 

Sir Silas. If we keep wheeling and wheeling, like a flock 
of pigeons, and rising again when we are within a foot of the 
ground, we shall never fill the craw. 

Sir Thomas. Do thou then question him, Sijas. 

Sir Silas. I am none of the quorum ; the business is none 
of mine. 

— Then Sir Thomas took Master Silas again into the bay- 
window, and said softly, "Silas, he hath no inkling of thy 
meaning ; the business is a ticklish one ; I like not overmuch 
to meddle and make therein." 

Master Silas stood dissatisfied awhile, and then answered, 
" The girl's mother, sir, was housemaid and sempstress in your 
own family, time back, and you thereby have a right over her 
unto the third and fourth generation." 

" I may have, Silas," said his worship ; " but it was no longer 
than four or five years agone that folks were fain to speak ma- 
liciously of me for only finding my horse in her hovel." 

Sir Silas looked red and shiny as a ripe strawberry on a Snit- 
terfield tile, and answered somewhat peevishly, "The same 
folks, I misgive me, may find the rogue's there any night in the 
week." 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 24 1 

Whereunto replied Sir Thomas mortifiedly, " I cannot think 
it, Silas, I cannot think it." And after some hesitation and 
disquiet, — " Nay, I am resolved I will not think it ; no man, 
friend or enemy, shall push it into me." 

"Worshipful sir," answered Master Silas, " I am as resolute 
as any one in what I would think and what I would not think, 
and never was known to fight dunghill in either cockpit. Were 
he only out of the way, she might do her duty ; but what doth 
she now ? She points his young beard for him, persuading him 
it grows thicker and thicker, blacker and blacker ; she washes 
his ruff, stiffens it, plaits it, tries it upon his neck, removes the 
hair from under it, pinches it with thumb and forefinger, pre- 
tending that he hath moiled it, puts her hand all the way round 
it, setting it to rights, as she calleth it — Ah, Sir Thomas, a 
louder whistle than that will never call her back again when 
she is off with him." 

Sir Thomas was angered, and cried tartly, " Who whistled, I 
would know? " 

Master Silas said submissively, " Your honor, as wrongfully I 
fancied." 

" Wrongfully, indeed, and to my no small disparagement and 
discomfort," said the knight, verily beheving that he had not 
whistled ; for deep and dubious were his cogitations. " I pro- 
test," went he on to say, "I protest it was the wind of the case- 
ment ; and if I live another year I will put a better in the place 
of it. Whistle, indeed ! For what ? I care no more about 
her than about an unfledged cygnet, — a child, 1 a chicken, a 
mere kitten, a crab-blossom in the hedge." 

The dignity of his worship was wounded by Master Silas 
unaware, and his wrath again turned suddenly upon poor 
William : — 

" Hark ye, knave ! hark ye again, ill-looking stripling, lanky 
from vicious courses ! I will reclaim thee from them ; I will 
do what thy own father would and cannot. Thou shalt follow 
his business." 

" I cannot do better, may it please your worship," said 
the lad. 

1 She was then twenty-eight years of age. Sir Thomas must have 
spoken of her from earlier recollections. Shakspeare was in his twenti- 
eth year. 

16 



242 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

" It shall lead thee unto wealth and respectability," said the 
knight, somewhat appeased by his ready compliancy and low 
gentle voice. " Yea, but not here ; no witches, no wantons 
[this word fell gravely and at full length upon the ear], no 
spells hereabout. Gloucestershire is within a measured mile of 
thy dwelling. There is one at Bristol, formerly a parish- boy, 
or little better, who now writeth himself ' gentleman ' in large 
round letters, and hath been elected, I hear, to serve as bur- 
gess in Parliament for his native city, — just as though he had 
eaten a capon or turkey-poult in his youth, and had actually 
been at grammar-school and college. When he began, he had 
not credit for a goat-skin ; and now, behold ye ! this very coat 
upon my back did cost me eight shillings the dearer for him, 
he bought up wool so largely." 

Shakspeare. May it please your worship, if my father so 
ordereth, I go cheerfully. 

Sir Thomas. Thou art grown discreet and dutiful. I am 
fain to command thy release, taking thy promise on oath, and 
some reasonable security, that thou wilt abstain and withhold 
in future from that idle and silly slut, that sly and scoffing 
giggler, Hannah Hathaway, with whom, to the heartache of 
thy poor worthy father, thou wantonly keepest company. 

— Then did Sir Thomas ask Master Silas- Gough for the 
Book of Life, bidding him deliver it into the right hand of Billy, 
with an eye upon him that he touch it with both lips, — it be- 
ing taught by the Jesuits, and caught too greedily out of their 
society and communion, that whoso toucheth it with one lip 
only, and thereafter sweareth falsely, cannot be called a per- 
jurer, since perjury is breaking an oath. But breaking half an 
oath, as he doth who toucheth the Bible or crucifix with one 
lip only, is no more perjury than breaking an eggshell is break- 
ing an egg, the shell being a part, and the egg being an 
integral. 

William did take the Holy Book with all due reverence the 
instant it was offered to his hand. His stature seemed to rise 
therefrom as from a pulpit, and Sir Thomas was quite edified. 

" Obedient and conducible youth ! " said he. "See there. 
Master Silas ! What hast thou now to say against him ? Who 
sees farthest?" 

"The man from the gallows is the most likely, bating his 



CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 243 

nightcap and blinker," said Master Silas, peevishly. "He hath 
not outwitted me yet." 

" He seized upon the Anchor of Faith like a martyr," said 
Sir Thomas ; " and even now his face burns red as elder- wine 
before the gossips." 

Shakspeare. I await the further orders of your worship from 
the chair. 

Sir Thomas I return and seat myself. 

— And then did Sir Thomas say with great complacency 
and satisfaction in the ear of Master Silas, " What civility 
and deference and sedateness of mind, Silas ! " 

But Master Silas answered not. 

Shakspeare. Must I swear, sir? 

Sir Thomas. Yea, swear ; be of good courage ! I protest 
to thee, by my honor and knighthood, no ill shall come unto 
thee therefrom. Thou shalt not be circumvented in thy 
simpleness and inexperience. 

— Willy, having taken the Book of Life, did kiss it piously, 
and did press it unto his breast, saying, "Tenderest love is 
the growth of my heart, as the grass is of Alvescote mead. 
May I lose my life or my friends, or my memory or my 
reason; may I be viler in my own eyes than those men 
are — " 

Here he was interrupted most lovingly by Sir Thomas, who 
said unto him, " Nay, nay, nay ! poor youth, do not tell me so ! 
They are not such very bad men ; since thou appealest unto 
Caesar, — that is, unto the judgment-seat." 

Now, his worship did mean the two witnesses, Joseph and 
Euseby; and, sooth to say, there be many worse. But Wil- 
liam had them not in his eye ; his thoughts were elsewhere, as 
will be evident, for he went on thus : — 

" — if ever I forget or desert thee, or ever cease to worship ^ 
and cherish thee, my Hannah ! " 

Sir Silas. The madman ! the audacious, desperate, out- 
rageous villain ! Look ye, sir, where he flung the Holy 
Gospel ! Behold it on the holly and box-boughs in the 
chimney-place, spreaden all abroad, like a lad about to be 
whipped ! 

1 It is to be feared that his taste for venison outlasted that for matri- 
mony, spite of this vow. 



244 CITATION OF WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE. 

Sir Thomas. Miscreant knave ! I will send after him 
forthwith ! Ho, there ! is the caitiff at hand, or running off? 

— Jonas Greenfield the butler did budge forward after a 
while, and say, on being questioned, " Surely, that was he ! 
Was his nag tied to the iron gate at the lodge. Master Silas? " 

"What should I know about a thief s nag, Jonas Green- 
field?" 

"And didst thou let him go, Jonas, even thou?" said Sir 
Thomas. " What, are none found faithful? " 

" Lord love your worship ! " said Jonas Greenfield ; " a man 
of threescore and two may miss catching a kite upon wing. 
Fleetness doth not make folks the faithfuUer, or that youth 
yonder beats us all in faithfulness. Look, he darts on like a 
greyhound whelp after a leveret. He, sure enough, it was ! 
I now remember the sorrel mare his father bought of John 
Kinderley last Lammas, swift as he threaded the trees along 
the park. He must have reached Wellesbourne ere now at 
that gallop, and pretty nigh Walton-hill." 

Sir Thomas. Merciful Christ ! grant the country be rid of 
him forever ! What dishonor upon his friends and native 
town ! A reputable wool-stapler's son turned gypsy and poet 
for life. 

Sir Silas. A Beelzebub ! he spake as bigly apd fiercely as a 
soaken yeoman at an election feast, — this obedient and con- 
ducive youth ! 

Sir Thomas. It was so written. Hold thy peace, Silas ! 



Po0t=<Scrtptum 

BY ME, EPHRAIM BARNETT. 



Twelve days are over and gone since William Shakspeare did 
leave our parts. And the spinster, Hannah Hathaway, is in sad 
doleful plight about him ; forasmuch as Master Silas Gough went 
yesterday unto her, in her mother's house at Shottery, and did 
desire both her and her mother to take heed and be admonished 
that if ever she, Hannah, threw away one thought after the runa- 
gate William Shakspeare, he should swing. 

The girl could do nothing but weep ; while as the mother did 
give her solemn promise that her daughter should never more think 
about him all her natural life, reckoning from the moment of this 
her promise. 

And the maiden, now growing more reasonable, did promise the 
same. But Master Silas said, "I doubt you will, though." 

" No," said the mother, " I answer for her she shall not think of 
him, even if she sees his ghost." 

Hannah screamed and swooned, the better to forget him. And 
Master Silas went home easier and contenteder. For now all the 
worst of his hard duty was accomplished ; he having been, on 
the Wednesday of last week, at the speech of Master John Shak- 
speare, Will's father, to inquire whether the sorrel mare was his. 
To which question the said Master John Shakspeare did answer, 
"Yea." 

" Enough said ! " rejoined Master Silas. *' Horse-stealing is 
capital. We shall bind thee over to appear against the culprit, as 
prosecutor, at the next assizes." 

May the Lord in his mercy give the lad a good deliverance, if so 
be it be no sin to wish it ! 

October i, a. 1x^1582. 

Laus Deo. 

E. B. 



MINOR PROSE PIECES. 



MINOR PROSE PIECES. 



I. OPINIONS ON C^SAR, CROMWELL, MILTON, 
AND BONAPARTE. 

No person has a better right than Lord Brougham to speak 
contemptuously of Csesar, of Cromwell, and of Milton. Cssar 
was the purest and most Attic writer of his country, and there 
is no trace of intemperance, in thought or expression, through- 
out the whole series of his hostilities. He was the most gener- 
ous friend, he was the most placable enemy; he rose with 
moderation, and he fell with dignity. Can we wonder then at 
Lord Brougham's unfeigned antipathy and assumed contempt? 
Few well-educated men are less able to deliver a sound opinion 
of style than his lordship ; and perhaps there are not many of 
our contemporaries who place a just value on Caesar's, dissim- 
ilar as it is in all its qualities to what they turn over on the 
sofa-table. There is calmness, there is precision, there is a 
perspicuity which shows objects in their proper size and posi- 
tion j there is strength without strain, and superiority without 
assertion. I acknowledge my preference of his style, and he 
must permit me to add Cicero's, to that which he considers 
the best of all, — namely, his own ; and he must pardon me if I 
entertain an early predilection for easy humor over hard vul- 
garity, and for graceful irony over intractable distortion. I 
was never an admirer, even in youth, of those abrupt and splin- 
tery sentences which, like many coarse substances, sparkle 
only when they are broken, and are looked at only for their 
sharpnesses and inequaUties. 

Csesar and Cromwell are hung up in the same wicker basket, 
as an offering to the warrior God of our formidable Celt's idol- 



250 OPINIONS ON CiESAR, ETC. 

atry. Cromwell was destitute of all those elegancies which 
adorned the Roman dictator, but he alone possessed in an 
equal degree all those which insure the constancy of Fortune. 
Both were needful, — one against an unjust and reckless aris- 
tocracy whose leader had declared that he would follow up the 
steps of Sulla, and cover the fields of Italy with slaughter ; the 
other, to rescue the most religious and most conscientious of 
his countrymen from the persecution of an unchristian and 
intolerant episcopacy, and the bravest friends of ancient free- 
dom from torture, from mutilation, and from solitude and 
death in pestilential jails. Were such the deeds of Charles? 
Yes ; but before an infallible Church had commanded us to 
worship him among the martyrs. Among ? no, not among, — 
above, and to the exclusion of all the rest. This was wanting 
as the finishing stroke of our Reformation. And was Cromwell 
then pure ? Certainly not ; but he began in sincerity, and he 
believed to the last that every accession of power was an 
especial manifestation of God's mercy. Fanaticism hath always 
drawn to herself such conclusions from the Bible, Power made 
him less pious, but more confident, God had taken him by 
the hand at first, and had now let him walk by himself: to 
show how he could walk, he strode. Religion, in the exercise 
of power, is more arbitrary, more intolerant, and more cruel 
than monarchy ; and the sordid arrogance of Presbyterianism 
succeeded to the splendid tyranny of Episcopacy. The crozier 
of Laud was unbroken ; those who had been the first in 
cursing it, seized and exercised it : it was to fall in pieces 
under the sword of Cromwell. To him alone are we indebted 
for the establishment of religious liberty. If a Vane and a 
Milton have acknowledged the obligation, how feeble were the 
voices of all men living, if the voices of all men living were 
raised against it. Of our English rulers Oliver holds the next 
place to Alfred ; and it would be unjust and ignominious to 
station him merely on a level with the most intelligent, the 
most energetic, and the most patriotic of succeeding kings. 
He did indeed shed blood ; but the blood he shed was solely 
for his country, although without it he never would have risen 
to the Protectorate. The same cannot be said of Csesar ; nor 
of that extraordinary personage whom some of his flatterers 
place beside, and some before him. 



OPINIONS ON CESAR, ETC. 25 1 

The first campaigns of Bonaparte were admirably conducted, 
and honor and glory in the highest degree are due to him for 
abstaining from the plunder of Italy. It would be ungenerous 
to seize the obvious idea that by his vivid imagination he prob- 
ably saw in the land of his forefathers his future realm, without 
any such hope regarding France, and was desirous of winning 
those golden opinions which bear so high an interest. But 
Egypt seems to be the country in which the renown of con- 
querors is destined to be tarnished. The latent vices of the 
Persian, of the Macedonian, of Pompey, of Julius, of Antonius, 
of Octavius, shot up here and brought forth fruits after their 
kind. It was here also that the eagle eye of Bonaparte was 
befilmed ; here forty thousand of the best troops in the world 
were defeated under his guidance, and led captive after his de- 
sertion. He lost Hayti, which he attempted to recover by 
force ; he lost Spain, which he attempted to seize by perfidy. 
And what generosity or what policy did he display with Tous- 
saint rOuverture, or with Ferdinand ? Imprisonment and a 
miserable death befell the braver. Is there a human heart that 
swells not at the deliberate murder of the intrepid and blame- 
less Hofer? I say nothing of Palm; I say nothing of D'En- 
ghein : even in such atoms as these he found room enough for 
the perpetration of a crime. They had indeed friends to mourn 
for them, but they were not singly worth whole nations ; their 
voices did not breathe courage into ten thousand breasts ; chil- 
dren were not carried into churches to hear their names uttered 
with God's. If they had virtues, those virtues perished with 
them : Hofer's will ring eternally on every mountain and irra- 
diate every mine of Tyrol ; Universal Man, domestic, political, 
and religious, will be the better for him. When he was led to 
slaughter in Mantua, some of those Italian soldiers who had 
followed Bonaparte in his earhest victories shed tears. The 
French themselves, from the drummer on the platform to the 
governor in the citadel, thought of the cause that first united 
them in arms, and knew that it was Hofer's. Bonaparte could 
no more pardon bravery in his enemy than cowardice in his 
soldier. No expression was too virulent for Hofer, for Sir 
Sydney Smith, or for any who had foiled him ; he spoke contemp- 
tuously of Kleber, maliciously of Hoche ; he could not even 
refrain from an unmanly triumph on the death of the weak 



252 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 

Moreau. If this is greatness, he certainly did not inherit it 
from any great man on record. Sympathy with men at large 
is not among their attributes, but sympathy with the courageous 
and enterprising may be found in all of them, and sometimes 
a glance has fallen from them so low as on the tomb of the 
unfortunate. The inhumanity of Napoleon was certainly not 
dictated by policy, whose dictates, rightly understood, never 
point in that direction. It is unnecessary to discuss what in- 
struction he received in his military school, after which he had 
small leisure for any unconnected with his profession. And so 
little was his regard for literature in others, that he drove out 
of France the only person in that country ^ who had attained 
any eminence in it. His " Catechism " was adapted to send 
back the rising generation to the Middle Ages. 

But let us consider that portion of his policy which he studied 
most, and on which he would have founded his power and 
looked forward to the establishment of his dynasty. He repu- 
diated the woman who attached to him the best of all parties, 
by the sweetness of her temper and the activity of her benefi- 
cence ; and he married into the only family proscribed by the 
prejudices of his nation. He soon grew restless with peace, 
and uneasy under the weight of his acquisitions. No public 
man, not Pitt himself, ever squandered such prodigious means 
so unprofitably. Anxious to aggrandize his family, could he 
not have given the whole of Italy to one brother, leaving Spain 
as his privy purse in the hands of its imbecile Bourbon ? Could 
he not have given Poland and Polish Prussia to the King of 
Saxony, and have placed an eternal barrier between France and 
Russia? The Saxon dominions, with Prussian Silesia, would 
have recompensed Austria for the session of the Venetian ter- 
ritories on the West of the Taghamento. I do not suggest 
these practicabilities as fair dealings toward nations : I suggest 
them only as suitable to the interests of Napoleon, who shook 
and threw nations as another gamester shakes and throws dice. 
Germany should have been broken up into its old Hanse towns 
and small principalities. 

With such arrangements, all feasible at one time or other, 
France would have been unassailable. Instead of which, her 
ruler fancied it necessary to make an enemy of Russia. Had 
1 Madame de Stael. 



OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 2$^ 

it been so, he might have profited by the experience of all who 
had ever invaded the interior of that country. The extremities 
of the Muscovite empire are easily broken off, by lying at so 
great a distance from the trunk ; added to which, they all are 
grafts, imperfectly granulated on an uncongenial stock, and with 
the rush-bound cement fresh and friable about them. Moscow 
never could be long retained by any hostile forces ; subsistence 
would be perpetually cut off and carried away from them by 
hostile tribes, assailing and retreating as necessity might de- 
mand, and setting fire to the harvests and the forests. The 
inhabitants of that city, especially the commercial body and 
the ancient nobility, would have rejoiced at the demolition of 
Petersburg which nothing could prevent, the ports of the Baltic 
being in the hands of Bonaparte, and Dantzic containing stores 
of every kind, sufficient for an army the most numerous that 
ever marched upon the earth. For the Asiatic have contained, 
in all ages, less than a fifth of fighting men, the rest being mer- 
chants, husbandmen, drovers, artisans, and other followers of the 
camp. The stores had been conveyed by the coast, instead of 
employing two- thirds of the cavalry ; and the King of Sweden 
had been invited to take possession of a fortress (for city there 
would have been none) protecting a province long under his 
crown, and reluctantly torn away from it. No man ever yet 
obtained the lasting renown of a consummate general who 
committed the same mistakes as had been committed in the 
same position by those before him ; who suffered great reverses 
by great improvidence ; who never rose up again after one 
discomfiture ;: or who led forth army upon army fruitlessly. 
Napoleon, in the last years of his sovereignty, fought without 
aim, vanquished without glory, and perished without defeat. 

Did Gustavus Adolphus, did Frederick, did Washington, ever 
experience a great reverse by committing a great imprudence ? 
For on this main question rests the solid praise of generalship. 
Bonaparte, after affronting every potentate of every dimension 
by the rudeness of his nature and the insolence of his domina- 
tion, left to every one of them sufficient power to retaliate. 
Surely, he must have read his MachiavelU upside-down ! A 
king should never be struck unless in a vital part. Cromwell, 
with many scruples, committed not this mistake ; Bonaparte, 
with none, committed it. The shadow of Cromwell's name 



254 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 

overawed the most confident and haughty. He intimidated 
Holland, he humiliated Spain, and he twisted the supple 
Mazarine, the ruler of France, about his finger. All those 
nations had then attained the summit of their prosperity ; all 
were unfriendly to the rising power of England ; all trembled 
at the authority of that single man who coerced at once her 
aristocracy, her priesthood, and her factions. No agent of 
equal potency and equal moderation had appeared upon earth 
before. He walked into a den of lions, and scourged them 
growling out; Bonaparte was pushed into a menagerie of 
monkeys, and fainted at their grimaces. His brother's bell 
and Oudinot's grenadiers frightened them off and saved him. 
Meteors look larger than fixed stars, and strike with more ad- 
miration the beholder. Those who know not what they are, 
call them preternatural. They venerate in Bonaparte what 
they would ridicule in a gypsy on the roadside, — his lucky and 
unlucky days, his ruling star, his ascendant. They bend over 
his emetic with gravity, and tell us that poison has no power 
over him. Nevertheless, the very men who owed their fortunes 
to him found him incompetent to maintain them in security. 
In the whole of Europe there was one single great man op- 
posed to him, wanting all the means of subsistence for an 
army, and thwarted in all his endeavors by those, for whose lib- 
eration he fought. His bugles on the Pyrenees dissolved the 
trance of Europe. He showed the world that military glory 
may be intensely bright without the assumption of sovereignty, 
and that history is best occupied with it when she merely tran-' 
scribes his orders and despatches. Englishmen will always 
prefer the true and modest to the false and meretricious ; and 
every experienced eye will estimate a Vatican fresco more 
highly than a staircase transparency. Rudeness, falsehood, 
malignity, and revenge have belonged in common to many 
great conquerors, but never to one great man. Cromwell 
had indulged in the least vile of these ; but on his assump- 
tion of power he recollected that he was a gentleman. No 
burst of rage, no sally of ribaldry, no expression of con- 
temptuousness, was ever heard from the Lord Protector. He 
could subdue or conciliate or spell-bind the master-spirits of 
his age ; but it is a genius of a far different order that is to seize 
and hold futurity : it must be such a genius as Shakspeare's 



OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 255 

or Milton's. No sooner was Cromwell in his grave, than all 
he had won for himself and for his country vanished. 

If we must admire the successful, however brief and hollow the 
advantages of their success, our admiration is not due to those 
whose resources were almost inexhaustible, and which nothing 
but profligate imprudence could exhaust, but to those who re- 
sisted great forces with means apparently inadequate, — such 
as Kosciusko and Hofer, Hannibal and Sertorius, Alexander 
and Caesar, Charles of Sweden and Frederick of Prussia. 
Above all these, and indeed above all princes, stands high 
Gustavus Adolphus, one of whose armies in the space of six 
weeks had seen the estuary of the Elbe and the steeples of 
Vienna ; another, if a fever had not wasted it on the Lake of 
Como, would within less time have chanted Luther's Hymn 
in St. Peter's. But none of these potentates had attempted the 
downfall or the disgrace of England. Napoleon, on the con- 
trary, stood at the head of that confederacy whose orators were 
consulting the interests of France in the British Parliament. 
He has left to the most turbulent and unprincipled of them a 
very memorable lesson. The schoolmaster is abroad in the 
guise of Bonaparte. He reminds them how, when his hands 
were full, they dropped what they held by grasping at what 
they could not hold ; how he made enemies of those who 
might have been neutrals or friends ; how he was driven out 
by weaker men than himself; and how he sank at last the 
unpitied victim of disappointed ambition. Lord Brougham will 
not allow us to contemplate greatness at our leisure ; he will 
not allow us, indeed, to look at it for a moment. Csesar must 
be stripped of all his laurels and left bald ; or some rude soldier, 
with bemocking gestures, must be thrust before his triumph. 
If he fights, he does not know how to hold his sword ; if he 
speaks, he speaks vile Latin. I wonder that Cromwell fares no 
better, if, signal as were his earlier services to his country, he 
lived a hypocrite and died a traitor. Milton is indeed less 
pardonable. He adhered, through good report and through 
evil report (and there was enough of both), to those who had 
a,sserted liberty of conscience, and who alone were able to 
maintain it. 

But an angry cracked voice is now raised against that 
eloquence — 



256 OPINIONS ON C^SAR, ETC. 

" Of which all Europe rang from side to side." 

I shall make only a few remarks on Milton's English, and a 
few preliminary on the importance of style in general, which 
none understood better than he. The greater part of those who 
are most ambitious of it are unaware of all its value. Thought 
does not separate man from the brutes, — for the brutes think ; 
but man alone thinks beyond the moment and beyond himself. 
Speech does not separate them, — for speech is common to all 
perhaps, more or less articulate, and conveyed and received 
through different organs in the lower and more inert. Man's 
thought, which seems imperishable, loses its form, and runs 
along from proprietor to impropriator, like any other transitory 
thing, unless it is invested so becomingly and nobly that no 
successor can improve upon it by any new fashion or combina- 
tion. For want of dignity or beauty, many good things are 
passed and forgotten ; and much ancient wisdom is overrun 
and hidden by a rampant verdure, succulent but unsubstantial. 
It would be invidious to bring forward proofs of this out of 
authors in poetry and prose, now living or lately dead. A dis- 
tinction must, however, be made between what falls upon many 
like rain, and what is purloined from a cistern or a conduit be- 
longing to another man's house. There are things which were 
another's before they were ours, and are not the less ours for 
that ; not less than my estate is mine because it was my grand- 
father's. There are features, there are voices, there are 
thoughts, very similar in many ; and when ideas strike the 
same chord in any two with the same intensity, the expression 
must be nearly the same. Let those who look upon style as 
unworthy of much attention, ask themselves how many, in pro- 
portion to men of genius, have excelled in it. In all languages, 
ancient and modern, are there ten prose-writers at once harmo- 
nious, correct, and energetic? Harmony and correctness are 
not uncommon separately, and force is occasionally with each ; 
but where, excepting in Milton, where, among all the moderns, 
is energy to be found always in the right place ? Even Cicero 
is defective here, and sometimes in the most elaborate of his 
orations. In the time of Milton it was not customary for men 
of abilities to address to the people at large what might inflame 
their passions; the appeal was made to the serious, to the 
well-informed, to the learned, and was made in the language of 



OPINIONS ON CESAR, ETC, 25/ 

their studies. The phraseology of our Bible, on which no sub- 
sequent age has improved, was thought to carry with it solem- 
nity and authority ; and even when popular feelings were to be 
aroused to popular interests, the language of the prophets was 
preferred to the language of the vulgar. Hence, amid the com- 
plicated antagonisms of war there was more austerity than fe- 
rocity. The gentlemen who attended the court avoided the 
speech as they avoided the manners of their adversaries. 
Waller, Cowley, and South were resolved to refine what was 
already pure gold, and inadvertently threw into the crucible 
many old family jewels, deeply enchased within it. EKot, Pym, 
Selden, and Milton reverenced their father's house, and retained 
its rich language unmodified. Lord Brougham would make us 
believe that scarcely a sentence in Milton is easy, natural, and 
vernacular. Nevertheless, in all his dissertations there are. 
many which might appear to have been written in our days, if 
indeed any writer in our days were endowed with the same 
might and majesty. Even in his "Treatise on Divorce," where 
the Bible was most open to him for quotations, and where he 
might be the most expected to recur to the grave and anti- 
quated, he has often employed, in the midst of theological 
questions and juridical formularies, the plainest terms of his 
contemporaries. Even his arguments against prelacy, where 
he rises into poetry like the old prophets, and where his ardent 
words assume in their periphery the rounded form of verse, 
there is nothing stiff or constrained. I remember a glorious 
proof of this remark, which I believe I have quoted before, but 
no time is lost by reading it twice : — 

" — But when God commands to take the trumpet, 
And blow a dolorous or thrilling blast, 
It rests not with man's will what he shall say, 
Or what he shall conceal." 

Was ever anything more like the inspiration it refers to ? Where 
is the harshness in it ; where is the inversion ? 

The style usually follows the conformation of the mind. 
Solemnity and stateliness are Milton's chief characteristics. 
Nothing is less solemn, less stately, less composed, or less 
equable than Lord Brougham's. When he is most vivacious, 
he shows it by twitches of sarcasm ; and when he springs 
highest, it is from agony. He might have improved his man- 

17 



258 INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE AT ST. IVES. 

ner by recurring to Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke, equally dis- 
contented politicians ; but there was something of high breeding 
in their attacks, and more of the rapier than of the bludgeon. 
Brougham found their society uncongenial to him, and trundled 
home in preference the sour quarter-cask of Smollett. Many 
acrid plants throw out specious and showy flowers ; few of these 
are to be found in his garden. What then has he ? I will tell 
you what he has, — more various and greater talents than any 
other man ever was adorned with, who had nothing of genius 
and little of discretion. He has exhibited a clear compendious 
proof that a work of extraordinary fiction may be elaborated 
in the utter penury of all those qualities which we usually 
assign to imagination. Between the language of Milton and 
Brougham there is as much difference as between an organ 
and a bagpipe. One of these instruments fills, and makes to 
vibrate, the amplest, the loftiest, the most venerable edifices, 
and accords with all that is magnificent and holy ; the other is 
followed by vile animals in fantastical dresses and antic ges- 
tures, and surrounded by the clamorous and disorderly. 



11. INSCRIPTION FOR A STATUE AT ST. IVES. 

OLIVER CROMWELL, 

a good son, a good husband, a good father, 

a good citizen, a good ruler 

both in war and peace, 

was born in this town. 

To know his publick acts, 

open the History of England, 

where it exhibits in few pages 

(alas too few !) 

the title of Commonwealth. 



III. SIR ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO 
PUBLIC MEN. 

Statues are now rising in every quarter of our metropolis, 
and mallet and chisel are the chief instruments in use. What- 
ever is conducive to the promotion of the arts ought undoubt- 
edly to be encouraged ; but love in this instance, quite as much 
as in any, ought neither to be precipitate nor blind. A true 
lover of his country should be exempted from the pain of 
blushes when a foreigner inquires of him, "Whom does this 
statue represent; and for what merits was it raised?" The 
defenders of their country, not the dismemberers of it, should 
be first in honor; the maintainers of the laws, not the sub- 
verters of them, should follow next. I may be asked by the 
studious, the contemplative, the pacific, whether I would assign 
a higher station to any public man than to a Milton and a 
Newton, My answer is plainly and loudly. Yes ! But the 
higher station should be in streets, in squares, in Houses of 
Parliament, — such are their places : our vestibules and our 
libraries are best adorned by poets, philosophers, and philan- 
thropists. There is a feehng which street- walking and public- 
meeting men improperly call "loyalty; " a feeling intemperate 
and intolerant, smelling of dinner and wine and toasts, which 
swells their stomachs and their voices at the sound of certain 
names reverberated by the newspaper press. As little do they 
know about the proprietary of these names as pot-wallopers 
know about the candidates at a borough election, and are just 
as vociferous and violent. A few days ago I received a most 
courteous invitation to be named on a committee for erecting 
a statue to Jenner. It was impossible for me to decline it ; 
and equally was it impossible to abstain from the observations 
which I am now about to state. I recommended that the 
statue should be placed before a public hospital, expressing 
my sense of impropriety in confounding so great a benefactor 



26o ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 

of mankind, in any street or square or avenue, with the Dis- 
memberer of America and his worthless sons. Nor would I 
willingly see him among the worn-out steam-engines of par- 
liamentary debates. The noblest parhamentary men who had 
nothing to distribute, not being ministers, are without statues. 
The illustrious Burke, the wisest, excepting Bacon, who at any 
time sat within the people's house ; Romilly, the sincerest 
patriot of his day ; Huskisson, the most intelligent in commer- 
cial affairs, — have none. Peel has become popular, not by his 
incomparable merits, but by his untimely death. Shall we never 
see the day when Oliver and William mount the chargers of 
Charles and George, and when a royal swindler is superseded 
by the purest and most exalted of our heroes, Blake ? 

Now the fever hath somewhat subsided which came over the 
people from the grave of Sir Robert Peel, there is room for a 
few obsei-vations on his decease and on its consequences. All 
public writers, I believe, have expatiated on his character, com- 
paring him with others who within our times have occupied 
the same position. My own opinion has invariably been that 
he was the wisest of all our statesmen ; and certainly, though 
lie found reason to change his sentiments and his measures, 
he changed them honestly, well weighed, always from convic- 
tion, and always for the better. He has been compared, and 
seemingly in no spirit of hostility or derision, with a Castle- 
reagh, a Perceval, an Addington, a Canning. Only one of 
these is worthy of notice ; namely, Canning, whose brilliancy 
made his shallowness less visible, and whose graces of style 
and elocution threw a veil over his unsoundness and lubricity. 
Sir Robert Peel was no satirist or epigrammatist, — he was only 
a statesman in public life, only a virtuous and friendly man in 
private ; par negotiis, nee supra. Walpole alone possessed 
his talents for business. But neither Peel nor his family were 
enriched from the spoils of his country; Walpole spent in 
building and pictures more than, double the value of his he- 
reditary estate, and left the quadruple to his descendants. 

Dissimilar from Walpole,, and from commoner and coarser 
men who occupied the same office. Peel forbade that a name 
which he had made illustrious should be degraded and stigma- 
tized by any title of nobility ; for he knew that all those titles 



ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 261 

had their origin and nomenclature from military services, and 
belong to military men, like their epaulets and spurs and 
chargers. They sound well enough against the sword and hel- 
met, strangely in law-courts and cathedrals ; but reformer as 
he was, he could not reform all this, — he could only keep 
clear of it in his own person. 

I now come to the main object of my letter. 

Subscriptions are advertised for the purpose of raising 
monuments to Sir Robert Peel, and a motion has been made 
in Parliament for one in Westminster Abbey at the public ex- 
pense. Whatever may be the precedents, surely the house of 
God should contain no object but such as may remind us of 
His presence and our duty to Him. Long ago I proposed 
that ranges of statues and busts should commemorate the great 
worthies of our country. All the lower parts of our National 
■Gallery might be laid open for this purpose. Even the best 
monuments in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's are deform- 
ities to the edifice. Let us not continue this disgrace. De- 
ficient as we are in architects, we have many good statuaries, 
and we might well employ them on the .statues of illustrious 
commanders and the busts of illustrious statesmen and writers. 
Meanwhile our cities, and especially the commercial, would, I 
am convinced, act more wisely, and more satisfactorily to the 
relict of the deceased, if instead of statues they erected 
schools and almshouses, with an inscription to his memory. 

We glory in about sixty whose busts and statues may occupy 
what are now the " deep solitudes and awful cells " in our 
National Gallery. Our literary men of eminence are happily 
more numerous than the political or the warlike, or both 
together. There is only one class of them which might be 
advantageously excluded, namely, the theological; and my 
reasons are these. First, their great talents were chiefly em- 
ployed on controversy ; secondly, and consequently, their 
images would excite dogmatical discord, every sect of the 
Anglican Church and every class of Dissenters complaining of 
undue preferences. Painture and sculpture lived in the midst 
of corruption, lived throughout it, and seemed indeed to draw 
vitality from it, as flowers the most delicate from noxious air ; 
but they collapsed at the searching breath of free inquiry, and 
could not abide persecution. The torch of philosophy never 



262 ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 

kindled the suffocating fagot, under whose smoke Theology- 
was mistaken for Religion. Theology had, until now, been 
speculative and quiescent ; she abandoned to Philosophy these 
humbler qualities : instead of allaying and dissipating, as 
Philosophy had always done, she excited and she directed 
animosities. Oriental in her parentage, and keeping up her 
wide connections in that country, she acquired there all the 
artifices most necessary to the furtherance of her designs : 
among the rest was ventriloquism, which she quite perfected, 
making her words seem to sound from above and from below 
and from every side around. Ultimately, when men had 
fallen on their faces at this miracle, she assumed the supreme 
power. Kings were her lackeys, and nations the dust under 
her palfrey's hoof. By her sentence Truth was gagged, 
scourged, branded, cast down on the earth in manacles ; and 
Fortitude, who had stood at Truth's side, was fastened with 
iiails and pulleys to the stake. I would not revive by any 
images, in the abode of the graceful and the gentle Arts, these 
sorrowful reminiscences. The vicissitudes of the world appear 
to be bringing round again the spectral past. Let us place 
great men between it and ourselves, — they are all tutelar ; not 
the warrior and the statesman only ; not only the philosopher ; 
but also the historian who follows them step by step, and the 
poet who secures us from peril and dejection by his counter- 
charm. Philosophers in most places are unwelcome ; but there 
is no better reason why Shaftesbury and Hobbes should be 
excluded from our gallery than why Epicurus should have been 
from Cicero's, or Zeno from Lucullus's. 

Of our sovereigns, I think Alfred, Cromwell, and William III. 
alone are eligible ; and they, because they opposed successfully 
the subverters of the laws. Three viceroys of Ireland will 
deservedly be placed in the same receptacle, — Sir John Perrot, 
Lord Chesterfield, and (in due time) the last lord-deputy; 
one Speaker, one only, of the Parliament, — he without whom 
no Parliament would be now existing; he who declared to 
Henry IV. that until all public grievances were removed, no 
subsidy should be granted., The name of this Speaker may be 
found in Rapin. English historians talk about facts, forgetting 
men. 

Admirals and generals are numerous and conspicuous. 



ROBERT PEEL, AND MONUMENTS TO PUBLIC MEN. 263 

Drake, Blake, Rodney, Jervis, Nelson, Collingwood ; the sub- 
duer of Algiers beaten down for the French to occupy ; and 
the defender of Acre, the first who defeated, discomfited, 
routed, broke, and threw into shameful flight Bonaparte. 
Our generals are Marlborough, Peterborough, Wellington, and 
that successor to his fame in India who established the empire 
that was falling from us, who achieved in a few days two ar- 
duous victories, who never failed in any enterprise, who accom- 
plished the most difficult with the smallest expenditure of 
blood, who corrected the disorders of the military, who gave 
the soldier an example of temperance, the civilian of simplicity 
and frugahty, and whose sole (but exceedingly great) reward 
was the approbation of our greatest men. 

With these come the statesmen of the Commonwealth, the 
students of Bacon, the readers of Philip Sidney, the companions 
of Algernon, the precursors of Locke and Newton. Opposite 
to them are Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton ; lower in 
dignity, Dryden, Pope, Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Keats, Scott, 
Burns, Shelley, Southey, Byron, Wordsworth ; the author of 
" Hohenlinden " and the " Battle of the Baltic ;" and the 
glorious woman who equalled these two animated works in her 
" Ivan " and '' Casablanca." Historians have but recently 
risen up among us ; and long be it before, by command of 
ParUament, the chisel grates on the brow of a Napier, a Grote, 
and a Macaulay ! 



IV. TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 

On coming to England, and on looking at the Cartoons ex- 
hibited for decorating the Houses of Parliament, you will won- 
der, Cornelius, that the most important facts and most illus- 
trious men have been overlooked. The English are certainly 
less sensitive to national glory than to party politics, to past 
achievements than to passing celebrity. Wilkes excited more 
enthusiasm than Hampden. It appears to be certain that the 
Protector Cromwell will be expunged from the pictorial history 
of the nation, — of that nation which he raised to the summit 
of political power. It is contended that he usurped his au- 
thority. We will not argue the point, nor take the trouble to 
demonstrate that the greatest and best princes in many coun- 
tries have been usurpers. Without great services none of 
them could ever have been invested with sufficient power to 
assume the first dignity of the State. William of Normandy 
was manifestly a usurper; and if breaking the direct line of 
succession is usurpation, so was William the Third. Henry 
the Fourth and Henry the Seventh were usurpers also, yet their 
reigns were signally beneficial to their people. And to Rich- 
ard the Third, whatever may have been his crimes in the as- 
cent to sovereignty, the nation at large is perhaps more in- 
debted for provident statutes of perdurable good than to any 
other of her kings. But the glory of them all is cast into ob- 
scurity by Cromwell. He humbled in succession the dominant 
powers of Europe, at a time when they were governed by the 
ablest men and had risen to the zenith of their prosperity. 
Spain, France, Holland, crouched before him ; and the soldiers 
of Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest king the world ever beheld, 
thought he had risen from the grave to accomplish the delivery 
of nations. For how little, in comparison, is France indebted 
to Napoleon ! Yet both king and people are united in raising 



TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 265 

a monument to his memory. Compare the posthumous 
honors conferred by the two great nations on the two great 
men. The body of the one is brought back from the extremi- 
ties of the ocean, to be venerated by a people he had reduced 
to servitude ; the body of the other was treated as the vilest 
malefactor's, in the midst of a nation he had vindicated from 
double slavery, — the slavery of a lawless prince and an in- 
tolerant priesthood. It is enough for Frenchmen that Napo- 
leon had once humbled the enemies of France. We, who 
judge more calmly, judge that whatever he did was done for 
the advancement of his power and the perpetuation of his 
dynasty. He had the quickest and the shortest sight of all 
men living, and his arrogance brought into France the nations 
that subdued her. Different in all these points was Oliver. 
Never was man more bravely humane or more tranquilly ener- 
getic. He stood above fear, above jealousy, above power ; he 
was greater than all things but his country. 

The English are erecting a column and statue to Nelson. 
No such monument has been raised to Blake, because he 
fought for a country without a king at the head of it. This 
courageous and virtuous man abstained from party and from 
politics, and would have defended his country even under the 
king who sold her. No action of Nelson himself is more 
glorious than the action of Blake at Cadiz, and his character 
on every side is without a stain ; but in England the authorities 
and the Arts neglect him. 

" Caret quia rege sacro." 

In the list of the committee which is to decide on fit sub- 
jects for painting the Houses of Parliament you will find the 
name of Eastlake, a good painter and a good scholar ; and of 
Rogers, endowed with every quality of a gentleman, and with 
an exquisite judgment in everything relating to literature and 
the fine arts. Yet I doubt if either of them would not prefer 
an allegory in the " Faery Queen," or a witchery in "Faust," 
for a decoration of the Chambers, if highly picturesque, to the 
most appropriate scene in parliamentary annals if less so. 
English history, in fact, is now represented without living 
figures, and worked by machinery. We see the events, and 
wonder where are the actors. The later historians keep them 



266 TO CORNELIUS AT MUNICH. 

carefully out of sight, and make their own voices suffice for all 
within the boxes they exhibit. 

The histories of other nations are alive with human agents ; 
the earth moves and heaves with their energies ; we see not 
only the work they have done, but we see them doing it. 
Whereas, in our own sandy deserts, the only things astir are 
small animals intent on their burrows, or striving to possess a 
knot of fresh herbage. All beyond is indistinct : if ever we 
come to it, we find only scanty eminences, under which are 
evanescent features and weightless bones ; we trample them 
down, and walk back again. 



V. THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 

The " Quarterly Review" for December, 1849, was shown 
to me this morning, for the sake of a note on page 130. A 
reviewer comes valiantly forth in his obscurity, and strikes at 
me in the bottom of a page, without provocation and with- 
out aim. Nothing of mine was in question ; the subject was 
utterly remote. Rabid animals run straight — could not this ? 
Is he blind? Apparently. The "Quarterly" would prolong 
its painful struggles for existence by clinging to my name. 

Speaking of the Duke of Wellington's Dispatches, the 
reviewer observes : " When French people could not resist the 
evidence of all great gifts and noble qualities with which that 
record was filled ; when they owned that it would not do to 
persist in their old vein of disparagement now the world had 
before it that series of writings in which it was impossible to 
say whether one should admire most, the range of knowledge, 
reflection, sense, and wisdom, or the unaffected display of 
every manly, modest, and human feeling under an almost 
infinite variety of circumstances, and all conveyed in language 
of such inimitable simplicity, so thoroughly the style becoming 
a captain and statesman of the most illustrious class, — when 
this was the result in France, the home faction saw it was time 
to consider the matter, and they undoubtedly showed, and 
have continued to show, proper signs of repentance. The 
exceptions are very few. Here in England we know of none 
at all in what can be called society ; of none in the periodical 
press, beyond its very lowest disgraces. Among authors," etc. 

It would be well if the writer of this verbose and rambling 
note had attempted, at least, the " inimitable simplicity " which 
he has been taught by some wiser authority to commend. No 
man ever praised more unreservedly or more heartily the Duke 
of Wellington's style, honesty, wisdom, and achievements than 
I have always done ; and though his Grace may care little for 



268 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 

such commendations, he will probably, if ever he hears of 
them, set them somewhere apart from the " Quarterly " 
reviewers. 

The reviewer proceeds to number me among the home fac- 
tion. Certainly I never was " at home " in it, and never knew 
where its home was. I never was at a public dinner, at a 
club, or hustings ; I never influenced or attempted to influence 
a vote, yet many (and not only of my own tenants) have 
asked me to whom they should give theirs. If the reviewer is 
desirous of obtaining any favor from the Duke of Wellington, 
let me assure him that the safest way is by descending from 
flattery to truth. Even the duke (as future ages, like the 
present, will call him) could not make his actions greater than 
they are j they can only be diminished, as the steps of holy 
places, by the grovelling knees and importunate kisses of 
fanatic worshippers. When I commend the conciseness, the 
manliness, the purity of the duke's style, it is not, as it must 
be in the reviewer, from hearsay and tradition. Let him also 
be taught, and repeat with less ostentation and more rev- 
erence, that far above the faded flowers wherewith his puny 
hands have bestrewn the great man's road, our deliverer has 
confirmed the religious (more than all the theologians in the 
country) in the belief that there is a superintending and a rul- 
ing Power, under which, and by whose especial guidance, a 
single arm can scatter myriads of the powerful, and raise up 
prostrate nations. 

I must now mount again the " bad eminence " on which it 
hath pleased this gentleman to place me. " Among authors of 
books of any sort of note," he continues, " verse or prose, we 
recollect of none, unless Mr. W. Savage Landor, who however 
clings with equal pertinacity to his ancient abuse of Bonaparte 
as a ' blockhead and a coward,' of Byron as a ' rhymer wholly 
devoid of genius or wit,' of Pitt as a * villain,' of Fox as a 
' scoundrel,' of Canning as a ' scamp,' and so on." 

Now, I appeal to you and to every man who, however negli- 
gently or however malignantly, has read my writings, whether 
my education and habits of life have permitted me such lan- 
guage. It is such as no gentleman could either have used or 
have attributed to another. Even if the phrases were reduced 
to synonymes of more decorum, the falsehood of the statement 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 269 

would remain. I have never called Bonaparte a "blockhead" 
or a "coward." I would not call by such a name even the 
writer of this criticism. Bonaparte committed many gross 
errors, some in polity, some in war, — greater indeed and 
more numerous than any leader of equal eminence. He lost 
three great armies ; he abandoned three in defeat. 

It is curious that the "Quarterly Review" should rail 
against my opinion on Bonaparte, when the only man of 
genius connected with it, Southey, far exceeded me in hostility 
to that sanguinary and selfish despot. His laws against the 
press were more numerous and more stringent than ever had 
existed in any country, and alienated from him every true 
friend of liberty and letters. His cruelty to Toussaint L 'Ou- 
verture (omitting an infinitude of others) was such as Charles 
IX. would have discountenanced, and such as could hardly 
have been perpetrated by his compatriot Eccellino. His mis- 
calculations in Syria, in Egypt, in Spain, in Germany, in Russia, 
where an open road to conquest lay before him along the 
Baltic, will supplant in another age the enthusiasm that now 
supports him. It is singular that a "Quarterly" reviewer 
should assail me for joining all his leaders in hostility to this 
destroyer ; and scarcely is it less so that I should continue on 
terms of intimacy with many the most prominent of his ad- 
mirers. Throughout life it has been my good fortune to enjoy 
the unbroken and unaltered friendship of virtuous and illus- 
trious men whose pohtical opinions- have been adverse. If it 
is any honor, it has been conferred on me to have received 
from Napoleon's heir the literary work he composed in prison, 
well knowing as he did, and expressing his regret for, my 
sentiments on his uncle. The explosion of the first cannon 
against Rome threw us apart forever. 

Of Byron I never have spoken as a " mere rhymer ; " I never 
have represented him as destitute of genius or of wit. He had 
much of both, with much energy, not always well apphed. 
Lord Malmesbury has informed us that Mr. Pitt entered into 
the war against France contrary to his own opinion, to gratify 
the king. If so, the word "villain" would carry with it too 
feeble a sound for me to employ it even in the company of 
such persons as my critic, supposing me ever to have been 
conversant in such. My intimacy with the friends and near 



270 THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 

relatives of Mr. Fox would have certainly closed my lips 
against the utterance of the appellation of "scoundrel " in regard 
to him. He had more and warmer friends than any statesman 
upon record ; he was ingenuous, Uberal, learned, philosophical ; 
he was the delight of social Kfe, the ornament of domestic. 
Mr. Fox was a man of genius, and (what in the present day is 
almost as rare) a gentleman. Specimens of either character 
may never have fallen in the reviewer's way; and if perad- 
venture they should have, probably it was not very closely, and 
his inexperience may easily have mistaken them. Reverence 
for the unknown, or for the dimly seen, may indeed be com- 
mon to the vulgar; but here is an instance that it is by no 
means universal. 

Mr. Canning was a graceful writer both in poetry and prose ; 
he had also the gift of eloquence in debate. His conduct 
toward his colleague in the Administration lost him all his 
popularity, which was not recovered by his asking an office 
from the minister he had traduced and fought. The word 
" scamp " was applied to Mr. Canning by the late Lord Yar- 
mouth, who certainly ought to have known its full signification. 
It was on the morning when, second to Lord Castlereagh, he 
saved Mr. Canning's life, desiring his cousin to give " the 
scamp a chance " by taking into the field, ijot his own well- 
tried pistols, but those which Lord Yarmouth had brought with 
him and laid upon the table. This account I received from 
the only other person then present, and now living. But what- 
ever I may continue to think of Mr. Canning, I prefer a phrase- 
ology somewhat circuitous to a monosyllable better adapted to 
the style and temper of the reviewer than to mine. 
' Few writers have been less obnoxious to rudeness and 
impertinence than I have been ; and I should abstain from 
noticing them now, had they been unaccompanied by a mis- 
representation of my manners and a forgery of my words. 
These are grave offences, such as public justice takes out of 
private hands, I remember a fable of Phsedrus, in which a 
mischievous youth cast a pebble at a quiet wayfarer, who, in- 
stead of resentment or remonstrance, advises him to perform 
the same exploit on a dignitary then coming up. I am quieter 
than the dignitary, and even than the quiet man. Instead of 
sending to the cross or to the whipping-post the mischievous 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 2/1 

youth who passes over the road to cast his pebble at me, al- 
though I might not perhaps beg him off from the latter inflic- 
tions, I would entreat his employer, the moment I could learn 
the editor's name, to continue the payment of his wages, and 
to throw in an additional trifle for his (however ill-directed) 
originality. I suspect he will neither be so graceful nor so 
proud as he might be on obtaining this notice. Could he 
have hoped it? But thus is extracted from the dryest and 
hardest lichen in the coldest regions, where men are the most 
diminutive, a nutritious sustenance often remedial in a low 
disease. 



VI. A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

Don Luis Cabeza-de-Moro was a widower, with two sons, 
Antonio and Ignacio. His younger brother, named also Ig- 
nacio, liad married a rich heiress in the island of Cuba, — both 
of whom died, leaving an only daughter, seven years old, to the 
guardianship of Don Luis, and intimating a wish, and providing 
by will and testament, that Ines in due time should espouse her 
cousin Ignacio. 

Don Luis was rejoiced at the injunction, — for he disliked 
his elder son from the cradle. This was remarkable, especially 
as his lady, the Dona Pedrila, had continued long without off- 
spring, and Antonio was her first-bom j besides which, there 
were mysteries and signs and tokens such as ought to have 
taught him better. His whole household were amazed and 
edified and awed at the result of supplications which, after 
four years of fruitless marriage, had produced this blessing; 
and the " Moor's head," the blazon of the family, was displayed 
by them with greater pride than ever in the balcony of the 
ancient mansion-house. About a year before this event, an 
Irish ensign had entered the service of Spain. Leave of ab- 
sence was given him to visit his maternal uncle, the dean of 
Santander, near which city was the residence of Don Luis. 
Subsequently, Dona Pedrila saw him so often, and was so im- 
pressed by his appearance, that it was reported in the family, 
and the report was by no means discouraged by the dean, that 
Ensign Lucius O'Donnell, now entitled Don Lucio, had been 
dreamt of by Dona Pedrila, not once only, or occasionally, but 
on the three successive vigils of the three glorious saints who 
were more especially the patrons of the house. Under the im- 
pression of these dreams, there was a wonderful likeness of the 
infant to Don Lucio, which Don Luis was the first to perceive, 
and the last to communicate. It extended to the color of the 
hair and of the eyes. Surely it ought to have rendered a 



A STORY OF SANTANDER. 2/3 

reasonable man more pious and paternal, but it produced quite 
a contrary effect. He could hardly endure to hear the three 
glorious saints mentioned ; and whenever he uttered their 
names, he elongated the syllables with useless emphasis and 
graceless pertinacity. Moreover, in speaking of the child to 
its numerous admirers, he swore that the creature was ugly and 
white-blooded. Within two more years Dona Pedrila bore 
another son to him, and died. This son, Ignacio, came into 
the world a few months before his cousin Ines, and the fathers 
were confident that the union of two such congenial names 
would secure the happiness of the children and of their 
posterity. 

Before Antonio had completed quite eleven years he was 
sent for his education to Salamanca, not as a collegian, but as 
a pupil under an old officer, a friend of Don Luis, who being 
somewhat studious had retired to end his days in that city. 
Here the boy, although he made no unsatisfactory progress in 
polite literature, engaged more willingly with his tutor in manly 
exercises, likewise in singing and playing on the guitar. He 
was never invited home for three entire years ; but Ignacio, 
who was of the mildest temper and kindest disposition, re- 
membering the playfulness and fondness of Antonio, united his 
entreaties with those of liies that he might return. Don Luis, 
in reply, threw a leg over a knee. 

^' Uncle," said Ines, "he cannot ride on that knee all the 
way from Salamanca ; send my mule for him, saddle, bridle, 
and ropes, and the little bit of gilt leather for the crupper, 
from the shrine of blessed Saint Antonio, his patron no less 
than the patron of mules and horses. Ignacio says we must 
have him ; and have him we will, if prayers and masses go for 
anything. Cannot we sing, cannot we play? What would you 
wish for his studies, — heresy, magic, freemasonry, chemistry, 
necromancy ? We want him, dear uncle ; we want him sadly 
with us. You always give us what we ask for in reason. Come 
now, a kiss, uncle, and then the mule out of the stable. Come, 
we will help you to write the letter, as you are somewhat out 
of practice, and I know how to fold one up, after a trial or 
two." 

No one could resist this appeal : Antonio was sent for. He 
returned in raptures. On his first entrance the lively eyes of 



274 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

Ines, full of curiosity, were bent toward him ; but he regarded 
her not. He threw his arms around Ignacio, lifted him ofif 
the ground, set him down again, gazed on his face, and burst 
suddenly into tears. 

" Ignacio, my Ignacio, how light you are ! how thin, how 
pallid, how weak ! " 

Don Luis looked on, and muttered something inaudible. 
Antonio, fearful of having offended his worthy genitor by neg- 
lect of duty, sprang from his dejection, clasped the waist of 
Don Luis, and then falling at his feet, asked his blessing. Don 
Luis with bitter composure prayed the three saints to bestow 
it, as they might well do, he said, on the young Senor Don 
Antonio now before them. The boy kissed his hand and 
thanked him fervently ; and now, in his inconsiderate joyous- 
ness, another spring forward ; but he stopped in the midst of 
it, and instead of running up at once to liaes, who bit her lip 
and pinched her veil, he turned again to Ignacio, and asked 
him in a whisper whether cousins were forced to kiss after an 
absence of only three years. "Certainly not," replied Ignacio. 
But Ines came up, and pouting a little gave him her hand 
spontaneously, and helped him moreover to raise it to his lips, 
saying, as he blushed at it, "You simpleton ! you coward ! " 

Antonio bore "simpleton" pretty well ; " .coward " amused 
him, and gave him spirit. He seized her hand afresh, and 
kept it within his, although she pushed the other against his 
breast, — the little hand, with its five arches of pink-polished 
nails half hidden in his waistcoat; the little hand sprouting 
forth at him, soft and pulpy as that downy bud which swells 
and bursts into the vine-leaf. 

Antonio never saw in her any other object than the betrothed 
of his brother, and never was with her so willingly as with him. 
Nor indeed did Ines care much about Antonio, but wished 
he could be a little more attentive and polite, and sing in a 
chamber as willingly as in a chestnut-tree. After six weeks 
Don Luis observed that Antonio was interrupting the studies 
of Ignacio and neglecting his own. Accordingly he was sent 
back to Salamanca, where he continued five whole years with- 
out recall. At this time the French armies had invaded Spain ; 
the old officer, Don Pablo Espinosa, who directed the studies 
of Antonio, wrote to his father that the gallant youth, now in 



A STORY OF SANTANDER. 275 

his twentieth year, desired to be enrolled in the regiment of 
the province, next to himself, as a volunteer and a private. In 
the fulness of joy Don Luis announced these tidings to Ignacio 
and Ines. They both turned pale ; both threw themselves on 
the floor before him, entreating and imploring him to forbid it. 
Their supplications and their tears for many days were insuffi- 
cient to mollify Don Luis. By this time a large division of the 
French army had surrendered, and insurrection was universal. 
Don Pablo was constrained, by three urgent letters, — of which 
the father's was, however, the least so, — to leave his pupil at 
the university ; he himself took the field, and perished in the 
first battle. Antonio, disappointed in his hopes of distinction, 
swore to avenge his tutor's death and his country's honor. His 
noble person, his extraordinary strength, his eloquent tongue, 
his unquestioned bravery, soon placed him at the head of many 
students, and he was always the first to advise and execute the 
most difficult and dangerous enterprises. 

Toward the north of Spain the enemy had rallied, and had 
won, indeed, the battle of Rio Seco, but within a month were 
retreating in all directions. Antonio, bound by no other duties 
than those of a volunteer, acceded at last to the earnest and re- 
peated wishes of his brother and cousin that he would in this 
interval return to them. Don Luis said he would be a mad- 
man wherever he was, but might return if he liked it, both he 
and his guitar. On the first of August, 1808, the visitor passed 
again the threshold of his native home. Covered as he was 
with dust, he entered the apartment where the family were 
seated. The sun was setting, and the supper had just been 
taken off the table, excepting two small flasks of red and white 
wine, part of a watermelon, and some pomegranates. In fact, 
more was remaining than had been eaten or removed, not reck- 
oning a radish of extraordinary length and tenuity, which the 
Senorita Ines was twisting round her thumb. It was no waste ; 
there was not any use for it ; many things in the house were 
better to mend harness with. Moreover, on the sideboard 
there were sundry yellow peaches, of such a size, weight, and 
hardness that only a confident and rash invader would traverse 
the country in the season of their maturity, unless he had col- 
lected the most accurate information that powder was deficient 
in the arsenals. 



2/6 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

At the dusty apparition, at the beard and whiskers never seen 
before, at the broad and belted shoulder, at the loud-spurred 
boot, at the long and hurried stride toward the party, Don Luis 
stared ; Don Ignacio stared ; Dona liies cast her eyes on the 
ground and said, " ' T is he ! " The brother, whether he heard 
her or not, repeated the words " ' Tis he ! " and rushed into his 
arms. Don Luis himself rose slowly from his chair, and 
welcomed him. Ifies was the nearest to him, and seemed 
abashed. 

" My cousin," said Antonio, bending down to her, " I have 
yet to remove in part the name of coward," and Hfting her 
hand from her apron, he kissed the extremities of her fingers. 
" Brother, one more embrace, and then for those pomegran- 
ates ; I am thirsty to death. God be with you, my dear, kind, 
honored father ! You look upon me with more than usual, 
and much more than merited, affection." Don Luis did in- 
deed regard him with much complacency. " I must empty 
those two flasks, my beloved father, to your health." So say- 
ing, he poured the contents of one into a capacious beaker, 
with about the same quantity of water, and swallowed it at a 
draught. 

" What lady have you engulfed with that enormous gasp?" 
asked liies, with timid shyness ; " will she never rise up, do 
you think, in judgment against you? " 

" Pray mix me the flask near you," said he, " in like manner 
as the last, and then perhaps I may answer you, my sweet 
cousin; but tell me, liies, whether I did not rasp your nails 
with; my thirsty and hard lips?" 

" Yes, and with that horrid brake above," said she, pouring 
out the wine and water, and oflering it. 

Don Luis all this time had kept his eyes constantly on his 
son, and began to prognosticate in him a valiant defender ; 
then discovered, first in one feature, afterward in another, a re- 
semblance to himself; and lastly, he was persuaded in his own 
mind that he had been prejudiced and precipitate when he 
was younger. The spirit of hospitality was aroused by paternal 
love ; he gave orders for a fowl to be killed instantaneously, 
even the hen on her nest rather than none, although the omelet 
might be thinner for it on the morrow. Such was the charm 
the gallant and gay Antonio breathed about the house. He 



A STORY OF SANTANDER. 277 

was peculiarly pleased and gratified by the suavity of his father ; 
not that he ever had doubted of his affection, but he had fan- 
cied that his own boisterous manners had rendered him less 
an object of solicitude. He had always been glad to see it 
bestowed on his brother, whose dehcate health and sensitive 
nature so much required it. 

No house in Spain, where few were happy then, contained 
four happier inmates. Ignacio, it is true, became thinner 
daily, and ceased after a time to join in the morning walks of 
his brother and Ines ; but he was always of the party when, 
returning from the siesta, they took up their guitars, and tuned 
each other's. 

Were there ever two comely and sensitive young persons, 
possessing sweet voices, exercising them daily together, bending 
over the same book, expressing the same sentiment in its most 
passionate accents, — were they ever long exempt from the gen- 
tle intrusion of one sweet stranger? Neither lUes nor Antonio 
was aware of it ; both would have smiled in the beginning, and 
both would have afterward been indignant at any such surmise. 
But revolutions in States effect no revolutions in nature. The 
French, who changed everything else, left the human heart as 
they found it. Ignacio feared, but said nothing. Antonio too, 
although much later, was awakened to the truth, and determined 
on departure. And now Ignacio was ashamed and grieved at 
his suspicions, and would have delayed his brother, who dis- 
sembled his observation of them ; but the poor youth's health, 
always slender, had given way under them. For several days 
he had taken to his bed ; fever had seized him, and had been 
subdued. But there is a rose which Death lays quietly on the 
cheek of the devoted, before the poppy sheds on it its tran- 
quillizing leaves : it had settled immovably in the midst of 
Ignacio's smiles, — smiles tranquilly despondent. Seldom did 
Antonio leave his bedside, but never had he yet possessed the 
courage to inquire the cause, of those sighs and tears, which 
burst forth in every moment of silence, and then only. At 
length however he resolved on it, that he might assure him the 
more confidently of his recovery, having first requested Ines 
that, whenever he was absent, she would supply his place. 

" Cannot we go together? " said she, disquieted. 

" No, senora ! '' answered he, with stem sadness, " we can- 



2/8 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

not. You owe this duty to the companion of your girlhood, to 
the bequeathed of your parents, to your betrothed." 

At that word sudden paleness overspread her countenance ; 
her Hps, which never before had lost their rich color, faded and 
quivered. No reply could pass them, had any been ready ; 
even the sigh was drawn suddenly back, — not one escaped. 
In all that was visible she was motionless. But now with strong 
impulse she pressed both palms against her bosom, and turned 
away. The suddenness and the sound struck terror into the 
heart of Antonio. He laid his hand on her shoulder, and 
looked into her face. Tears glittered on the folds of the long 
black veil ; and they were not the tears of liies. But now she 
also shed them. Alas ! from how many and from what distant 
sources do they flow ! 

liies went ; she sobbed at the door, but she went. No song 
that evening, no book, no romance of love, no narrative of war : 
the French were as forgotten as the Moors. 

Morning rose fresh and radiant ; but the dim lavender on 
each side of the narrow pathway had all its dew upon it ; the 
cistus was opening its daily flowers, with no finger to press 
down and attempt to smoothen the crumpled leaves ; none to 
apply its viscous cup in playful malice against the trim orna- 
ment of a smiling lip. Nobody thought of looking for the 
large green lizard on the limestone by the twisted rosemary- 
bush, covered with as many bees as blossoms, and uprearing as 
many roots as branches above the prostrate wall. Nobody 
thought of asking, " Did you ever know any creature who 
panted so quickly as that foolish lizard ? — I mean in bat- 
tle." Nobody met the inquiry with, "Did you ever hear of 
any one who felt anything a little, a very little like it, at the 
cembalo? " 

Antonio, at this early hour, was seated on the edge of his 
brother's bed, asking him, with kind dissimulation, what reason 
he could possibly have to doubt liies' love and constancy. 

" At first," replied Ignacio, " she used to hold my hand, to 
look anxiously in my face, and to wipe away her tears that she 
might see it the more distinctly in this darkened chamber. 
Now she has forgotten to take my hand ; she looks as often 
into my face, but not anxiously, not even inquiringly; she 
lets her tears rise and dry again ; she never wipes them away, 



A STORY OF SANTANDER. 279 

and seldom hides them. This at least is a change in her; 
perhaps no favorable one for me." 

Antonio thus answered him : " Ignacio, if we would rest at 
all, we must change our posture in grief as in bed. The first 
moments are not like the second, nor the second like the last. 
Be confident in her ; be confident in me : within two hours 
you shall, I promise you, whether you will or not. Farewell, 
my beloved brother ! You are weary ; close but your eyes for 
sleep, and sleep shall come. I will not awaken you, even with 
glad tidings." 

Folding his arms, he left the chamber with a firm step. 
Within two hours he entered it again ; but how ? Hateful as 
monastic life had ever appeared to him, ridiculous as he daily 
in Salamanca had called its institutions, indifferent and incred- 
ulous as he lately had become to many articles of the faith, 
having been educated under the tuition of a soldier, — so free 
in his opinions as once to have excited the notice and question- 
ings of the Inquisition, — he went resolutely forth at daybreak, 
and prevailed on the superior of a monastic order to admit him 
into it at once, as its sworn defender. He returned in the vest- 
ments of that order, and entered the bedchamber in silence. 
His brother had slept, and was yet sleeping. He gently 
undrew the curtain, and stood motionless. Ignacio at last 
moved his elbow, and sighed faintly ; he then rested on it a 
little, and raised his cheek higher on the pillow : it had lost 
the gift of rest, its virtues were departed from it ; there was 
no cool part left. He opened his eyes and looked toward 
Antonio ; then closed them, then looked again. 

" Ignacio ! " said Antonio, softly, " you see me ; it is me you 
see, Ignacio ! " 

The sick exhausted youth sighed again, and closing his hands, 
raised them as if in prayer. This movement fully awakened him. 
He now opened his eyes in wonder on his brother, who pressed 
those raised hands within his, and kissed that brow which the 
fever had shortly left. Ignacio sighed deeply and sank back 
again. The first words he uttered afterward were these : — 

" Oh, Antonio ! why could you not have waited, — impet- 
uous, impatient Antonio? I might have seen you both from 
Paradise ; I might have blest you from thence, — from thence 
I might indeed. O God ! O Virgin ! O Mary, pure and true ! 



280 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

pardon my ingratitude ! Should love ever bear that bitter fruit ? 
Forbid it, O host of Heaven ! forbid it ! it must not be," 

" Brother, speak not so ; it is accomplished," said Antonio ; 
" and now can you doubt your bride? " 

Ines at this moment rushed into the chamber. She knew the 
stately figure, she knew the lofty head, although tonsured ; she 
screamed and fainted. Antonio drew her forth by the arm, 
and when she recovered her senses, thus addressed her : — 

" Cousin, my heart reproaches me for having loved you. If 
yours (how incomparably less guilty !) should haply feel some 
compunction, not indeed at what is past, but at what you see," 
and he extended his large mantle to his arm's length, " return 
from the unworthy to the worthy ; from him who renounces 
the world to him whose world you are. Now, Ines, now we 
can with unabashed front go together into his chamber." 

" I will tend him," said she, " day and night ; I will follow 
him to the grave ; I will enter it with him, — yes, and even 
that chamber, while he suffers in it, I will enter." She paused 
awhile, then continued : " Antonio, oh, Antonio ! you have 
never loved. They tell us none can love twice. That is false ; 
but this is true, — we can never love twice the same object." 

Antonio stood mute with wonder at the speech of this inno- 
cent girl, retired alike from society and unbeguiled by books. 
Little had he considered how strong a light is sometimes thrown 
on the intellect, what volumes of thought are expanded and 
made clearly legible, by the first outflaming of the passions. 
And yet Antonio should have known it ; for in the veins of 
Antonio one half was blood, the other half was fire. While 
with eyes fixed on the ground he stood yet before her, who 
perhaps was waiting for his reply, she added briefly, — 

" Let me repair my fault as well as may be. You shall see 
me no more. Leave, me sir ! " 

Antonio did leave her. In a fortnight the gentle spirit of 
Ignacio had departed. 

The French armies had again defeated the Spanish, pene- 
trated to Santander, laid waste all the country around, and de- 
molished the convent in which Ines had taken refuge. Some 
women in Spanish cities were heroines ; in Spanish convents, if 
any became so, the heroism was French. 



A STORY OF SANTANDER. 28 1 

They who have visited Santander will remember the pointed 
hill on the northwest of the city, looking far over the harbor, 
the coast, and the region of La Mancha. Even while the 
enemy was in possession of the place, a solitary horseman was 
often seen posted on this eminence, and many were the dead 
bodies of French soldiers found along the roads on every side 
under it. Doubtless, the horseman had strong and urgent rea- 
sons for occupying a position so exposed to danger. It was 
Antonio. He had heard that Ines, after the desecration of the 
convent, had been carried back by the invaders into Santander. 

Early in October, the officers of the garrison made parties 
with the ladies of the city to enjoy the vintage in its vicinity. 
One morning a peasant boy employed by Antonio, ran breath- 
less up to him on the mountain side, saying, as soon as he 
could say it, — 

" Illustrious senor, the Senora Ines and the other senoras, 
and an officer and a soldier, all French, are coming ; and only 
a mile behind are many more." 

" I have watched them," replied Antonio, " and shall dis- 
tinguish them presently." He led his horse close behind a high 
wagon, laden with long and narrow barrels of newly gathered 
grapes standing upright in it, and then tied his bridle to the bar 
which kept them in their position. Only one horse could pass 
it at a time. Ines was behind j the officer was showing her 
the way, and threatening both vintagers and mules for their in- 
tractability. Antonio sprang forward, seized him by the collar, 
and threw him under them, crying to Ines : " Fly into the 
mountains with me ! not a moment is to be lost ! Pass me : 
he is out of the way. Fly ! fly ! Distrust my sanctity, but trust 
my honor, O liies of Ignacio ! " 

liies drew in her bridle, turned her face aside, and said 
irresolutely, " I cannot ! oh, I cannot ! I am — I am — " 

She could not utter what she was : perhaps the sequel may 
in part reveal it. Scarcely had she spoken the last words, be- 
fore she leaped down from her saddle, and hung with her whole 
weight on Antonio's arm, in which the drawn sword was uplifted 
over the enemy, and waiting only until he could rise upon his 
feet again, and stand upon his defence. He was young, as was 
discernible even through the dense forest of continuous hair 
which covered all but nose and forehead. Roughly and with 



282 A STORY OF SANTANDER. 

execrations did he thrust liies away from him, indignant at her 
struggles for his protection. Before the encounter (for which 
both were eager) could begin, the private had taken his post 
behind an ilex at the back of Antonio, and discharged his mus- 
ket. Gratitude, shame, love perhaps too, hurried liies to his 
help. She fell on her knees to raise him. Gently, with open 
palm and quivering fingers, he pushed her arm away from him, 
and turning with a painful effort quite round, pressed his brow 
against the wayside sward. The shepherd dogs in the evening 
of that sultry day tried vainly to quench their thirst, as they 
often had done in other human blood, in the blood also of 
Antonio : it was hard, and they left it. The shepherds gave 
them all the bread they carried with them, and walked home 
silently. 



VII. THE DEATH OF HOFER. 

I PASSED two entire months in Germany, and like the people. 
On my way I saw Waterloo, — an ugly table for an ugly game. 
At Innspruck I entered the church in which Andreas Hofer is 
buried. He lies under a plain slab, on the left, near the door. 
I admired the magnificent tomb of bronze in the centre, sur- 
rounded by heroes, real and imaginary. They did not fight, 
tens against thousands ; they did not fight for wives and chil- 
dren, but for lands and plunder, — therefore they are heroes ! 
My admiration for these works of art was soon satisfied, which 
perhaps it would not have been in any other place. Snow 
mixed with rain was falling, and was blown by the wind upon 
the tomb of Hofer. I thought how often he had taken advan- 
tage of such weather for his attacks against the enemies of his 
country, and I seemed to hear his whistle in the wind. At the 
little village of Landro (I feel a whimsical satisfaction in the 
likeness of the name to mine) the innkeeper was the friend of 
this truly great man, — the greatest man that Europe has pro- 
duced in our days, excepting his true compeer, Kosciusko. 
Andreas Hofer gave him the chain and crucifix he wore three 
days before his death. You may imagine this man's enthusi- 
asm, who because I had said that Hofer was greater than king 
or emperor, and had made him a present of small value as the 
companion and friend of that harmless and irreproachable hero, 
took this precious relic from his neck and offered it to me. 

By the order of Bonaparte, the companions of Hofer, eighty in 
number, were chained, thumbscrewed, and taken out of prison 
in couples to see him shot. He had about him one thousand 
florins in paper currency, which he delivered to his confessor, 
requesting him to divide it impartially among his unfortunate 
countrymen. The confessor, an Italian who spoke German, 
kept it, and never gave relief from it to any of them, most of 
whom were suffering, not only from privation of wholesome 



284 THE DEATH OF HOFER. 

air, to which, among other privations they never had been ac- 
customed, but also from scantiness of nourishment and clothing. 
Even in Mantua, where as in the rest of Italy sympathy is both 
weak and silent, the lowest of the people were indignant at the 
sight of so brave a defender of his country led into the pubhc 
square to expiate a crime unheard of for many centuries in 
their nation. When they saw him walk forth, with unaltered 
countenance and firm step before them ; when, stopping on the 
ground which was about to receive his blood, they heard him 
with unfaltering voice commend his soul and his country to the 
Creator, and as if still under his own roof (a custom with him 
after the evening prayer) , implore a blessing for his boys and 
his little daughter, and for the mother who had reared them up 
carefully and tenderly thus far through the perils of childhood ; 
finally, when in a lower tone, but earnestly and emphatically, 
he besought pardon from the Fount of Mercy for her brother, 
his betrayer, — many smote their breasts aloud ; many, think- 
ing that sorrow was shameful, lowered their heads and wept ; 
many, knowing that it was dangerous, yet wept too. The peo- 
ple remained upon the spot an unusual time ; and the French, 
fearing some commotion, pretended to have received an order 
from Bonaparte for the mitigation of the sentence, and publicly 
announced it. Among his many falsehoods, any one of which 
would have excluded him forever from the society of men of 
honor, this is perhaps the basest ; as indeed of all his atrocities 
the death of Hofer, which he had ordered long before and ap- 
pointed the time and circumstances, is that which the brave 
and virtuous will reprobate the most severely. He was urged 
by no necessity, he was prompted by no policy ; his im_patience 
of courage in an enemy, his hatred of patriotism and integrity 
in all, of which he had no idea himself and saw no image in 
those about him, outstripped his blind passion for fame, and 
left him nothing but power and celebrity. 

The name of Andreas Hofer will be honored by posterity 
far above any of the present age, and together with the most 
glorious of the last, — Washington and Kosciusko. For it rests 
on the same foundation, and indeed on a higher basis. In 
virtue and wisdom their coequal, he vanquished on several 
occasions a force greatly superior to his own in numbers and 
in disciphne, by the courage and confidence he inspired, and 



THE DEATH OF HOFER. 285 

by his brotherly care and anxiety for those who were fighting 
at his side. Differently, far differently, ought we to estimate 
the squanderers of human blood, and the scomers of human 
tears. We also may boast of our great men in a cause as 
great, — for without it they could not be so. We may look 
back upon our Blake, whom the prodigies of a Nelson do not 
eclipse, — nor would he have wished (such was his generosity) 
to obscure it. Blake was among the founders of freedom ; 
Nelson was the vanquisher of its destroyers ; Washington was 
both ; Kosciusko was neither ; neither was Hofer. But the 
aim of all five was alike ; and in the armory of God are sus- 
pended the arms the last two of them bore, — suspended for 
success more signal and for vengeance more complete. 

I am writing this from Venice, which is among cities what 
Shakspeare is among men. He will give her immortality by 
his works, which neither her patron saint could do nor her 
surrounding sea. 



VIII. A VISION. 

Blessed be they who erected temples to the ancient Gods ! 
Mistaken they may have been, but they were pious and they 
were grateful. The deities of Olympus, although no longer 
venerated, have thrown open both to the enthusiastic and to the 
contemplative many a lofty view beyond the sterile eminences 
of human life, and have adorned every road of every region 
with images of grandeur and of grace. Never are they malig- 
nant or indifferent to the votary who has abandoned them ; and 
I believe there is no record of any appearing by night with 
frowns and threats, but on the contrary I know from my own 
experience that neither time nor neglect has worn the celestial 
smile off their placid countenances. An instance of this fact I 
am now about to relate. 

Let me begin by observing that my eyes, perhaps by an 
imprudent use of them, grow soon weary with reading, even 
while curiosity and interest have lost little or nothing of ex- 
citement. A slumber of a few minutes is sufficient to refresh 
them, during which time I often enjoy the benefit of a dream ; 
and what is, I believe, remarkable and singular, it usually takes 
a direction far wide of the studies on which I had been en- 
gaged. On one occasion perhaps it might have been that — 
pushing my book away from me to the middle of the table — 
the last object I saw was a picture by Swaneveldt, on the left 
of which there is a temple ; for a temple, sure enough, stood 
before me in my dream. Beside it ran a river, and beyond 
it rose a mountain, each sensible alike of the sky that glowed 
above. So far the picture and the dream were in accordance. 
But the dream's temple was entirely its own ; it had no sheep 
nor shepherd near it as the picture had, and although dreams 
are apt to take greater liberties than pictures do, yet in the 
picture there was an autumnal tree by the side of a summer 
tree, — the one of rich yellow, the other of deep green. In 



A VISION. 287 

the dream I remember nothing of the kmd ; yet I verily think 
I remember every particle of it. I remember a cool and gentle 
hand conducting me over some narrow planks thrown across 
a deep channel of still water. I remember the broad leaves 
underneath us, and how smooth, how quiet, how stainless, I 
remember we tarried here awhile, not leaning on the rail, for 
there was none, but tacitly agreeing to be mistaken in what we 
reciprocally were leaning on. At length we passed onward by 
the side of a cottage in ruins, with an oven projecting from 
it at the gable-end ; on the outside of its many-colored arch 
were gillifiowers growing in the crevices ; very green moss, in 
rounded tufts and blossoming, had taken possession of its en- 
trance ; and another plant, as different as possible, was hanging 
down from it, so long and slender and flexible that a few bees 
as they alighted on it shook it. Suddenly I stumbled ; my 
beautiful guide blushed deeply, and said, — 

" Do you stumble at the first step of the temple ? What an 
omen ! " 

I had not perceived that we had reached any temple ; but 
now, abashed at the reproof, I looked up and could read the 
inscription, although the letters were ancient, for they were 
deeply and well engraven. "Sacred to Friendship" were the 
words, in Greek. The steps were httle worn, and retained all 
■their smoothness and their polish. After so long a walk as 
I had taken I doubt whether I should have ascended them 
without the hand that was offered me. In the temple I beheld 
an image, of a marble so purely white that it seemed but re- 
cently chiselled. I walked up to it and stood before it. The 
feet were not worn as the feet of some images are by the lips 
of votaries ; indeed, I could fancy that scarcely the tip of a 
finger had touched them, and I felt pretty sure that words were 
the only offerings, and now and then a sigh at a distance. Yet 
the longer I gazed at it the more beautiful did it appear in its 
color and proportions ; and turning to my companion, who, I . 
then discovered, was looking at me, — 

" This image," said I, " has all the features and all the attri- 
butes of Love, excepting th^ bow, quiver, and arrows." 

"Yes," answered she smiling; "all excepting the mischiev- 
ous. It has all that the wiser and better of the ancients attrib- 
uted to him. But do you really see no difference ? " 



288 A VISION. 

" Again I raised my eyes, and after a while I remarked that 
the figure was a female, very modest, very young, and little 
needing the zone that encompassed her. I suppressed this 
portion of my observations, innocent as it was, and only 
replied, — 

" I see that the torch is borne above the head, and that the 
eyes are upHfted in the same direction." 

" Do you remember," said she, " any image of Love in this 
attitude?" 

" It might be," I answered ; " and with perfect propriety." 

"Yes; it both might and should be," said she. "But," she 
continued, " we are not here to worship Love, or to say any- 
thing about him. Like all the other blind, he is so quick at 
hearing, and above all others, blind or sighted, he is so ready 
to take advantage of the slightest word, that I am afraid he 
may one day or other come down on us unaware. He has 
been known before now to assume the form of Friendship, 
making sad confusion. Let us deprecate this, bending our 
heads devoutly to the Deity before us." 

Was it a blush, or was it the sun of such a bright and 
genial day, that warmed my cheek so vividly while it de- 
scended in adoration; or could it be, by any chance of 
casualty, that the veil touched it through whiqh the breath of 
my virgin guide had been passing ? Whatever it was, it awak- 
ened me. Again my eyes fell on the open book, — to rest on 
it, not to read it; and I neither dreamed nor slumbered a 
second time that day. 



IX. THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 

When I was younger I was fond of wandering in solitary- 
places, and never was afraid of slumbering in woods and grot- 
toes. Among the chief pleasures of my life, and among the 
commonest of my occupations, was the bringing before me such 
heroes and heroines of antiquity, such poets and sages, such of 
the prosperous and of the unfortunate, as most interested me 
by their courage, their wisdom, their eloquence, or their adven- 
tures. Engaging them in the conversation best suited to their 
characters, I knew perfectly their manners, their steps, their 
voices ; and often did I moisten with my tears the models I 
had been forming of the less happy. Great is the privilege of 
entering into the studies of the intellectual ; great is that of 
conversing with the guides of nations, the movers of the mass, . 
the regulators of the unruly will, stiff in its impurity, and rash 
against the finger of the Almighty Power that formed it, — but 
give me rather the creature to sympathize with ; apportion me 
the sufferings to assuage. Allegory had few attractions for 
me ; beheving it to be the delight in general of idle, frivolous, 
inexcursive minds, in whose mansions there is neither hall nor 
portal to receive the loftier of the passions. A stranger to 
the affections, she holds a low station among the handmaidens 
of Poetry, being fit for little but an apparition in a mask. I 
had reflected for some time on this subject, when, wearied 
with the length of my walk over the mountains, and finding a 
soft old mole-hill covered with gray grass by the way- side, I 
laid my head upon it, and slept, I cannot tell how long it was 
before a species of dream, or vision, came over me. 

Two beautiful youths appeared beside me. Each was 
winged, but the wings were hanging down, and seemed ill 
adapted to flight. One of them, whose voice was the softest I 
ever heard, looking at me frequently, said to the other, " He is 
under my guardianship for the present ; do not awaken him 
with that feather." Methought, on hearing the whisper, I saw 
something like the feather of an arrow, and then the arrow 

19 



290 THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 

itself, the whole of it, even to the point, although he carried 
it in such a manner that it was difficult at first to discover 
more than a palm's length of it ; the rest of the shaft (and the 
whole of the barb) was behind his ankles. 

"This feather never awakens any one," replied he, rather 
petulantly ; " but it brings more of confident security and 
more of cherished dreams than you, without me, are capable 
of imparting." 

" Be it so," answered the gentler; "none is less inclined 
to quarrel or dispute than I am. Many whom you have 
wounded grievously call upon me for succor ; but so little am 
I disposed to thwart you, it is seldom I venture to do more for 
them than to whisper a few words of comfort in passing. How 
many reproaches, on these occasions, have been cast upon me 
for indifference and infidelity ! Nearly as many, and nearly in 
the same terms, as upon you." 

" Odd enough, that we, O Sleep ! should be thought so 
alike ! " said Love, contemptuously. " Yonder is he who 
bears a nearer resemblance to you : the dullest have ob- 
served it." 

I fancied I turned my eyes to where he was pointing, and 
saw at a distance the figure he designated. Meanwhile the 
contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in assert- 
ing his power or his benefits. Love recapitulated them, but 
only that he might assert his own above them. Suddenly he 
called on me to decide, and to choose my patron. Under the 
influence first of the one, then of the other, I sprang from 
repose to rapture, I alighted from rapture on repose, and knew 
not which was sweetest. Love was very angry with me, and 
declared he would cross me throughout the whole of my 
existence. Whatever I might on other occasions have thought 
of his veracity, I now felt too surely the conviction that he 
would keep his word. At last, before the close of the alter- 
cation, the third Genius had advanced, and stood near us. I 
cannot tell how I knew him, but I knew him to be the Genius 
of Death. Breathless as I was at beholding him, I soon be- 
came familiar with his features. First they seemed only calm ; 
presently they grew contemplative, and lastly beautiful : those 
of the Graces themselves are less regular, less harmonious, less 
composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a counte- 



THE DREAM OF PETRARCA. 29I 

nance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of 
disdain ; and cried, " Go away ! go away ! Nothing that thou 
touchest, Hves." 

"Say, rather, child," rephed the^ advancing form, and ad- 
vancing grew loftier and stateUer, — " say rather that nothing of 
beautiful or of glorious lives its own . true Ufe until my wing 
hath passed over it." 

Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his fore- 
finger the stiff short feathers on his arrow-head, but replied 
not. Although he frowned worse than ever, and at me, I 
dreaded him less and less, and scarcely looked toward him. 
The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in proportion as I 
took courage to contemplate him, regarded me with more and 
more complacency. He held neither flower nor arrow, as the 
others did ; but throwing back the clusters of dark curls that 
overshadowed his countenance, he presented to me his hand, 
openly and benignly. I shrank on looking at him so near; 
and yet I sighed to love him. He smiled, not without an 
expression of pity, at perceiving my diffidence, my timidity, — 
for I remembered how soft was the hand of Sleep, how warm 
and entrancing was Love's. By degrees I grew ashamed of 
my ingratitude ; and turning my face away, I held out my arms, 
and felt my neck within his. Composure allayed all the 
throbbings of my bosom, the coolness of freshest morning 
breathed around, the heavens seemed to open above me, 
while the beautiful cheek of my deliverer rested on my head. 
I would now have looked for those others ; but knowing my 
intention by my gesture he said consolatorily, " Sleep is on his 
way to the earth, where many are calling him ; but it is not to 
them he hastens, for every call only makes him fly farther off. 
Sedate and grave as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and 
volatile as the more arrogant and ferocious one." 

"And Love," said I, " whither is he departed? If not too 
late, I would propitiate and appease him." 

" He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and 
pass me," said the Genius, "is unworthy of the name, the 
most glorious in earth or heaven. Look up ! Love is yonder, 
and ready to receive thee." 

I looked. The earth was under me : I saw only the clear 
blue sky, and something brighter above it. 



X. PARABLE OF ASABEL. 

CHAPTER I. 

AsABEL in his youth had been of those who place their trust 
in God, and he prospered in the land, and many of his friends 
did partake of his prosperity. After a length of years it came 
to pass that he took less and less delight in the manifold gifts 
of God, for that his heart grew fat within him, and knew not 
any work-day for its work ; nor did thankfulness enter into it, 
as formerly, to awake the sluggard. 

Nevertheless did Asabel praise and glorify the Almighty 
both morning and evening, and did pray unto Him for the con- 
tinuance and increase of His loving mercies, and did call him- 
self, as the godly are wont to do, miserable sinner, and leper 
and worm and dust. And all men did laud Asabel, inasmuch 
as, being clothed in purple and smelling of spikenard, he was 
a leper and worm and dust. And many did come from far 
regions to see that dust and that worm and that leper, and did 
marvel at him, and did bow their heads, and did beseech of 
God that they might be like unto him. But God inclined not 
his ear ; and they returned unto their own country. 

CHAPTER II. 

And behold it came to pass that an angel from above saw 
Asabel go forth from his house. And the angel did enter, and 
did seat himself on the seat of Asabel. 

After a while, a shower fell in sunny drops upon the plane- 
tree at the gate, and upon the hyssop thereby, and over the 
field nigh unto the dwelling. Whereupon did Asabel hasten 
him back ; and coming into the doorway he saw another seated 
upon his seat, who arose not before him, but said only, " Peace 
be unto thee ! " 



PARABLE OF ASABEL. 293 

Asabel was wroth, and said, " Lo ! the rain abateth, the 
sun shineth through it ; if thou wilt eat bread, eat ; if thou 
wilt drink water, drink ; but having assuaged thy hunger and 
thy thirst, depart ! " 

Then said the angel unto Asabel, " I will neither eat bread 
nor drink water under thy roof, O Asabel ! forasmuch as thou 
didst send therefrom the master whom I serve." 

And now the wrath of Asabel waxed hotter, and he said, 
" Neither thy master nor the slave of thy master have I sent 
away, not knowing nor having seen either." 

Then rose the angel from the seat, and spake : " Asabel, 
Asabel ! thy God hath filled thy house with plenteousness. 
Hath he not verily done this and more unto thee ? " 

And Asabel answered him, and said : " Verily the Lord my 
God hath done this and more unto his servant ; blessed be his 
name forever ! " 

Again spake the angel : " He hath given thee a name among 
thy people ; and many by his guidance have come unto thee 
for counsel and for aid." 

" Counsel have I given, aid also have I given," said Asabel; 
" and neither he who received it nor he who gave it, hath re- 
pented himself thereof." 

Then answered the angel : " The word that thou spakest is 
indeed the true word. But answer me in the name of the 
Lord thy God. Hath not thy soul been farther from him as 
thy years and his benefits increased ? The more wealth and 
the more wisdom (in thy estimation of it) he bestowed upon 
thee, hast thou not been the more proud, the more selfish, 
the more disinclined to listen unto the sorrows and wrongs 
of men? " 

And Asabel gazed upon him, and was angered that a youth 
should have questioned him, and thought it a shame that the 
eyes of the young should see into the secrets of the aged ; and 
stood reproved before him. 

But the angel took him by the hand and spake thus : " Asa- 
bel, behold the fruit of all the good seed thy God hath given 
thee, — pride springing from wealth, obduracy from years, and 
from knowledge itself uncontrollable impatience and inflexible 
perversity. Couldst thou not have employed these things much 
better? Again I say it, thou hast driven out the God that 



294 PARABLE OF ASABEL. 

dwelt with thee ; that dwelt within thy house, within thy breast ; 
that gave thee much for thyself, and intrusted thee with more 
for others. Having seen thee abuse, revile, and send him thus 
away from thee, what wonder that I, who am but the lowest of 
his ministers, and who have bestowed no gifts upon thee, should 
be commanded to depart ! " 

Asabel covered his eyes, and when he raised them up again, 
the angel no longer was before him. " Of a truth," said he, 
and smote his breast, " it was the angel of the Lord." And 
then did he shed tears. But they fell into his bosom, after a 
while, like refreshing dew, bitter as were the first of them ; and 
his heart grew young again, and felt the head that rested on it ; 
and the weary in spirit knew, as they had known before, the 
voice of Asabel. 

Thus wrought the angel's gentleness upon Asabel, even as 
the quiet and silent water wins itself an entrance where tempest 
and fire pass over. It is written that other angels did look up 
with loving and admiration into the visage of this angel on his 
return ; and he told the younger and more zealous of them, 
that, whenever they would descend into the gloomy vortex of 
the human heart, under the softness and serenity of their voice 
and countenance its turbulence would subside. " Beloved ! " 
said the angel, "there are portals that open to the palm- 
branches we carry, and that close at the flaming sword." 



XL JERIBOHANIAH. 

Jeribohaniah sat in his tent, and was grieved and silent, 
for years had stricken him. And behold there came and stood 
before him a man who also was an aged man, who howbeit 
was not grieved, neither was he silent. Nevertheless, until 
Jeribohaniah spake unto him, spake not he. 

But Jeribohaniah had always been one of ready speech ; nor 
verily had age minished his words, nor the desire of his heart 
to question the stranger. Wherefore uttered he first what 
stirred within him, saying, " Methinks thou comest from a far 
country : now what country may that be whence thou comest? " 

And the stranger named by name the country whence his 
feet, together with the staff of his right hand, had borne him. 

"Bad, exceeding bad, and stinking in our nostrils," said 
Jeribohaniah, " is that country ! Nevertheless mayest thou 
enter and eat within my tent, and welcome, seeing that thy 
scrip hangeth down to thy girdle, round and large as hangeth 
the gourd in the days of autumn ; and it is fitting and right 
that if I give unto thee of mine, so likewise thou of thine, in 
due proportion, give unto me ; and the rather, forasmuch as 
my tent containeth few things within it, and thy wallet (I 
guess) abundant." 

Whereupon did Jeribohaniah step forward, and strive to 
touch with his right hand the top of the wallet, and the bottom 
with his left. But the stranger drew back therefrom, saying, 
" Nay." 

Then Jeribohaniah waxed wroth, and would have smitten 
the stranger at the tent, asking him in his indignation why he 
drew back, and wherefore he withheld the wallet from the most 
just, the most potent, the most intelligent, and the most vener- 
able of mankind ! Whereupon the stranger answered him and 
said, "Far from thy servant be all strife and wrangling, all 



296 JERIBOHANIAH. 

doubt and suspicion. Verily he hath much praised thee, even 
until this day, unto those among whom he was born and abided. 
And when some spake evil of thee and of thine, then did thy 
servant, even I who stand before thee, say unto them, ' Tarry ! 
I will myself go forth unto Jeribohaniah, and see unto his ways, 
and report unto ye truly what they be.' " 

" And now I guess," quoth Jeribohaniah, " thou wouldst re- 
turn and tell them the old story, — how I and my children 
have lusted after the goods of other men, and have taken 
them. Now, we only took the goods, — the men took we not; 
yet so rebellious and migrateflil were they that we were fain to 
put them to the edge of the sword. And thus did we. And 
lest another such generation of vipers should spring up in the 
wilderness beyond them, we sent onward just men, who should 
turn and harrow the soil, and put likewise to the edge of the 
sword such as would hinder us in doing what is lawful and 
right; namely, that which our wills ordained. To prevent 
such an extremity, our prudence and humanity led us, under 
God, to detain the silver and gold intrusted to us by the most 
suspicious and spiteful of our enemies. And now thou art ad- 
mitted into my confidence, lay down thy scrip, and eat and 
drink freely." 

" Pleaseth it thee," replied the stranger, " that I carry back 
unto my own country what thou hast related unto me as seem- 
ing good in thine eyes? " 

"Carry back what thou wilt," calmly said Jeribohaniah, 
" save only that which my sons, whose long shadows are now 
just behind thee, may hold back." 

Scarcely had he spoken when the sons entered the tent, 
and, occupying all the seats, bade the stranger be seated and 
welcome. Venison brought they forth in deep dishes; wine 
also poured they out, and they drank unto his health. And 
when they had wiped their lips with the back of the hand, 
which the Lord in his wisdom had made hairy for that pur- 
pose, they told the stranger that other strangers had blamed 
curiosity in their kindred ; and that they might not be reproved 
for it, they would ask no questions as to what might peradven- 
ture be contained within the scrip, but would look into it at 
their leisure. 

Jeribohaniah told his guest that they were wild lads, and 



JERIBOHANIAH. 297 

would have their way. He then looked more gravely and 
seriously, saying, — 

" Everything in this mortal life ends better than we short- 
sighted creatures could have believed or hoped. Providence 
hath sent us back those boys purely that thy mission might be 
accomplished. Unless they had come home in due time, how 
little wouldst thou have had to relate to thy own tribe con- 
cerning us, save only what others, envying our probity and 
prosperity, and far behind us in wisdom and enterprise, have 
discoursed about, year after year? " 



CRITICISMS 



THEOCRITUS, CATULLUS, AND PETRARCA. 



CRITICISMS. 



I 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

Within the last half-century the Germans have given us 
several good editions of Theocritus. That of Augustus Meine- 
kius, to which the very inferior and very different poems of 
Bion and Moschus are appended, is among me best and the 
least presuming. No version is added ; the ■pes are few and 
pertinent, never pugnacious, never prolix. =,^1 no age, since 
the time of Aristarchus or before, has the Gfeek language been 
so profoundly studied, or its poetry in its Ature and metre so 
perfectly understood, as in ours. Neither Athens nor Alexan- 
dria saw so numerous or so intelligent a race of grammarians as 
Germany has recently seen contemporary. Nor is the society 
diminished, nor are its labors relaxed at this day. Valckenaer, 
Schrieber, Schaeffer, Kiesling, Wue§teman, are not the only 
critics and editors who, before the present one, have bestowed 
their care and learning on Theocritus. 

Doubts have long been entertained upon the genuineness of 
several among his Idyls. But latterly a vast number, even of 
those which had never been disputed, have been called in 
question by Ernest Reinhold, in a treatise printed at Jena in 
1819. He acknowledges the first eleven, the thirteenth, four- 
teenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and eighteenth. Against the arbi- 
trary ejection of the remainder rose Augustus Wissowa in 1828. 
In his "Theocritus Theocritoeus," vindicating them from sus- 
picion, he subjoins to his elaborate criticism a compendious 
index of ancient quotations, in none of which is any doubt en- 
tertained of their authenticity. But surely it requires no force 
of argument, no call for extraneous help, to subvert the feeble 



302 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

position, that, because the poet wrote his Pastorals mostly in 
his native dialect (the Doric), he can never have written in 
another. If he composed the eighteenth Idyl in the ^olic, 
why may he not be allowed the twelfth and twenty-second in 
the Ionic? Not, however, that in the twelfth he has done it 
uniformly : the older manuscripts of this poem contain fewer 
forms of that dialect than were afterward foisted into it, for 
the sake of making it all of a piece. It is easy to believe that 
the Idyls he wrote in Sicily were Doric, with inconsiderable 
variations, and that he thought it more agreeable to Hiero, 
whose favor he was desirous of conciliating. But when he re- 
tired from Sicily to the court of Ptolemy, where Callimachus 
and ApoUonius and Aratus were residing, he would not on 
every occasion revert to an idiom little cultivated in Egypt. 
Not only to avoid the charge of rivalry with the poets who were 
then flourishing there, but also from sound judgment, he wrote 
heroic poetry in Homeric verse, — in verse no less Ionic than 
Homer's own ; indeed, more purely so. 

Thirty of his poems are entitled Idyls, — in short all but the 
Epigrams, however different in length, in subject, and in metre. 
But who gave them this appellation, or whence was it derived ? 
We need go up no higher than to eT8os for the derivation, and 
it is probable that the poet himself supplied the title. But did 
he give it to all his compositions, or even to all those (except- 
ing the Epigrams) which are now extant ? We think he did 
not, although we are unsupported in our opinion by the old 
scholiast who wrote the arguments. "The poet," says he, " did 
not wish to specify his pieces but ranged them all under one 
titled We believe that he ranged what he thought the more 
important and the more epic under this category, and that he 
omitted to give any separate designation to the rest, prefixing to 
each piece (it may be) its own title. Nay, it appears to us not 
at all improbable that those very pieces which we modems call 
more peculiarly Idyls, were not comprehended by him in this 
designation. We believe that t&vXkiov means a small image 
of something gi-eater, and that it was especially applied at first 
to his short poems of the heroic cast and character. As the 
others had no genuine name denoting their quality, but only 
the names of the interlocutors or the subjects (which the an- 
cient poets, both Greek and Roman, oftener omitted), they 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 3O3 

were all after a while comprehended in a mass within one com- 
mon term. That the term was invented long after the age of 
Theocritus, is the opinion of Heine and of Wissowa ; but where 
is the proof of the fact, or foundation for the conjecture ? No- 
body has denied that it existed in the time of Virgil ; and many 
have wondered that he did not thus entitle his Bucolics, instead 
of calling them Eclogues. And so indeed he probably would 
have done, had he believed that Theocritus intended any such 
designation for his Pastorals. But neither he nor Calpumius, 
nor Nemesian, called by the name of Idyl their bucolic poems ; 
which they surely would have done if, in their opinion or in the 
opinion of the pubUc, it was applicable to them. It was not 
thought so when literature grew up again in Italy, and when 
the shepherds and shepherdesses recovered their lost estates 
in the provinces of poetry, under the patronage of Petrarca, 
Boccaccio, Pontanus, and Mantuanus. 

Eobanus Hessus, a most voluminous writer of Latin verses, 
has translated much from the Greek classics, and among the 
rest some pieces from Theocritus. From time to time we have 
spent several hours of idleness over his pages ; but the farther 
we proceeded, whatever was the direction, the duller and 
drearier grew his unprofitable pine-forest, the more wearisome 
and disheartening his flat and printless sands. After him, 
Bruno Sidelius, another German, was the first of the moderns 
who conferred the name of Idyl on their Bucolics. As this 
word was enlarged in its acceptation, so was another in another 
kind of poetry ; namely, the Pasan, which at first was appro- 
priated to Apollo and Artemis, but was afterward transferred to 
other deities. Servius, on the first ^neid, tells us that Pindar 
not only composed one on Zeus of Dodona, but several in 
honor of mortals. The same may be said ot the Dithjrambic. 
Elegy too, in the commencement, was devoted to grief exclu- 
sively, like the ncenics and thrence. Subsequently it embraced 
a vast variety of matters, some of them ethic and didactic ; 
some the very opposite to its institution, inciting to war and 
patriotism, for instance those of Tyrtseus ; and some to love 
and licentiousness, in which Mimnermus has been followed 
by innumerable disciples to the extremities of the earth. 

Before we inspect the Idyls of Theocritus, one by one, as we 
intend to do, it may be convenient in this place to recapitulate 



304 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

what little is known about him. He tells us, in the epigraph 
to them, that there was another poet of the same name, a 
native of Chios, but that he himself was a Syracusan of low 
origin, son of Praxagoras and Philina. He calls his mother 
TrepiKk^LTrj (illustrious), evidently for no other reason than 
because the verse required it. There is no ground for disbe- 
lieving what he records of his temper, — that he never was 
guilty of detraction. His exact age is unknown, and unimpor- 
tant. One of the Idyls is addressed to the younger Hiero, 
another to Ptolemy Philadelphus. The former of these began 
his reign in the one hundred and twenty-sixth Olympiad, the 
latter in the one hundred and twenty-third. In the sixteenth 
Idyl the poet insinuates that the valor of Hiero was more con- 
spicuous than his liberality ; on Ptolemy he never had reason 
to make any such remark. Among his friends in Egypt was 
Aratus, of whom Cicero and Caesar thought highly, and of 
whose works both of them translated some parts. Philetus the 
Coan was another ; and his merit must also have been great, 
for Propertius joins him with Callimachus, and asks permission 
to enter the sacred grove of poetry in their company, — 

" Callimachi manes et Coi sacra Philetas I 
In veStrum quaeso me sinite ire nemus." 

It appears, however, that Aratus was more -particularly and 
intimately Theocritus's friend. To him he inscribes the sixth 
Idyl, describes his loves in the seventh, and borrows from him 
the religious exordium of the seventeenth. After he had 
resided several years in Egypt, he returned to his native 
country, and died there. 

We now leave the man for the writer, and in this capacity 
we have a great deal more to say. The poems we possess 
from him are only a part, although probably the best, of what 
he wrote. He composed hymns, elegies, and iambics. Her- 
mann, in his dissertation on hexameter verse, expresses his 
wonder that Virgil, in the Eclogues, should have deserted the 
practice of Theocritus in its structure ; and he remarks, for 
instance, the first in the first Idyl, — 

'ASiJ T« rh ^tdipiafia Koi a irirvs . . . alir6\e T-fiva. 

This pause, however, is almost as frequent in Homer as in 
Theocritus ; and it is doubtful to us, who indeed have not 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 305 

counted the examples, whether any other pause occurs so often 
in the Ihad. In reading this verse, we do not pause after 
TTtTus, but after ij/iOvpLcrixa ; but in the verses which the illus- 
trious critic quotes from Homer the pause is precisely in that 
place, — 

HSvTO} fxev Ta vpcora Kopvfffferai . . . avrap eiretra 
Xepcrai l>7]yvujj.eyov fx,eyd\a Ppeixei . . . afj.(pl Se t &Kpas. 

Although the pause is greatly more common in the Greek 
hexameter than in the Latin, yet Hermann must have taken up 
Virgil's Eclogues very inattentively in making his remark. 
For that which he wonders the Roman has imitated so spar- 
ingly from the Syracusan occurs quite frequently enough in 
Virgil, and rather too frequently in Theocritus. It may be 
tedious to the inaccurate and negligent ; it may be tedious to 
those whose reading is only a species of dissipation, and to 
whom ears have been given only as ornaments ; nevertheless, 
for the sake of others, we have taken some trouble to establish 
our position in regard to the Eclogues, and the instances are 
given below : — 

Eel. I , containing 83 verses. 

Namqne erit ille mihi semper deus . . . 
Non equidem invideo, miror magis . . . 
Ite mese, felix quondam, pecus . • . 

Eel. II. 73 verses. 

Atque superba pati fastidia . . . 
Cum placidum ventis staret mare . . . 
Bina die sieeant ovis ubera . . . 
Heu, heu ! quid volui misero mihi .-. -. 

Eel. III. iTi verses. 

Die mihi, Damoeta, cujum pecus . . . 
Infelix, O semper oves pecus . . . 
Et, si non aliqua nocuisses . . . 
Si nescis, mens ille caper fuit . . . 
Bisque die numerant ambo pecus . . . 
Parta mese Veneri sunt munera . . . 
Pollio et ipse facit nova carmina . . . 
Parcite, oves, nimium procedere . . . 

Eel. V. 90 verses. 

Sive antro potius succedimus . . . 
Frigida, Daphni, boves ad flumina . . . 
20 



306 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

Quale sopor fessis in gramine . . , 
Haec eadem docuit cujum pecus . . . 

Eel. VI. 86 verses. 

Cum canerem reges et prselia . . . 
^gle Naiadum pulcherrima . . . 
Carmina quse vultis cognoscite . . . 
Aut aliquam in magno sequitur grege 
Errabunda bovis vestigia . . . 
Quo cursu deseita petiverit . . . 

Eel. VII. 70 verses. 

Ambo florentes aetatibus . . . 
Vir gregis ipse caper deerraverat . . . 
Aspicio ; ille ubi me contra videt . . . 
Nymphse noster amor Lebethrides 
Quale meo Codro concedite . . . 
Setosi caput hoc apri tibi . . . 
Ite domum pasti, si quis pudor . . . 
Aut si ultra placitum laudarit . . . 
Si foetura gregem suppleverit . . . 
Solstitium pecori defendite . . . 
Populus Alcidse gratissima . . . 
Fraxinus in sylvis pulcherrima. 

Eel. VIII. 109 verses. 

Sive oram Illyrici legis asquoris . . . 
A te principium, tibi desinet ... - 
Carmina coepta tuis, atque hac sine . . 
Nascere prasque diem veniens age . . . 
Omnia vel medium fiant mare . . . 
Desine Msenalios jam desine . . . 
Ducite ab urbe domum, mea carmina . 
Transque caput jace ; ne respexeris . . 

Eel. IX. 67 verses. 

Heu cadit in quemquam tantum scelus 
Tityre dum redeo, brevis est via . . . 
Et potum pastas age Tityre . . . 
Pierides, sunt et mihi carmina . . . 
Omnia fert setas, animum quoque . . . 
Nunc oblita mihi tot carmina . . . 
Hinc adeo media est nobis via . . . 
Incipit apparere Bianoris . . . 

Eel. X. 77 verses. 

Nam neque Parnassi, vobis juga . . . 
Omnes mide amor iste rogant tibi . . 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 307 

Instances of the cadence are not wanting in the ^neid. 
The fourth book, the most elaborate of all, exhibits them, — 

" Tempora, quis rebus dexter modus "... 

And again in the last lines, with only one interposed, — 

" Devolat, et supra caput adstitit . . . 
Sic ait et dextra crinem secat." 

In Theocritus it is not this ijsage which is so remarkable ; it 
is the abundance and exuberance of dactyls. They hurry on 
one after another, like the waves of a clear and rapid brook in 
the sunshine, reflecting all things the most beautiful in Nature, 
but not resting upon any. 

Idyl I. Of all the poetry in all languages, that of Theocri- 
tus is the most fluent and easy ; but if only this Idyl were ex- 
tant, it would rather be memorable for a weak imitation of it 
by Virgil and a beautiful one by Milton, than for any great 
merit beyond the harmony of its verse. Indeed, it opens with 
such sounds as Pan himself in a prelude on his pipe might have 
produced. The dialogue is between Thyrsis and a goatherd. 
Here is much of appropriate description ; but it appears un- 
suitable to the character and condition of a goatherd to offer 
so large a reward as he offers for singing a song. , " If you 
will sing as you sang in the contest with the Libyan shepherd 
Chromis, I will reward you with a goat, mother of two kids, 
which goat you may milk thrice a day ; for though she suckles 
two kids, she has milk enough left for two pails." 

We often hear that such or such a thing " is not worth an old 
song." Alas, how very few things are ! What precious recol- 
lections do some of them awaken ! What pleasurable tears do 
they excite ! They purify the stream of life ; they can delay 
it on its shelves and rapids ; they can turn it back again to the 
soft moss amidst which its sources issue. 

But we must not so suddenly quit the generous goatherd ; 
we must not turn our backs on him for the sake of indulging 
in these reflections. He is ready to give not only a marvel- 
lously fine goat for the repetition of a song, but a commodity 
of much higher value in addition, — a deep capacious cup of 
the most elaborate workmanship, carved and painted in several 
compartments. Let us look closely at these. 



308 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

The first contains a woman in a veil and fillet ; near her are 
two young suitors who throw fierce words one against the other : 
she never minds them, but smiles upon each alternately. Surely 
no cup, not even a magical one, could express all this ! But 
they continue to carry on their ill-will. 

In the next place is an old fisherman on a rock, fi-om which 
he is hauHng his net. Not far firom him is a vineyard, laden 
with purple grapes. A little boy is watching them near the 
boundary-hedge, while a couple of foxes are about their busi- 
ness, — one walking through the rows of vines, picking out the 
ripe grapes as he goes along ; the other devising mischief to 
the boy's wallet, and declaring on the word of a fox that he 
will never quit the premises until he has captured the breakfast 
therein deposited. 

The song is deferred no longer, — and a capital song it is ; 
but the goatherd has well paid the piper. It is unnecessary to 
transcribe the verses which Virgil and Milton have imitated : 

" Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga nam neque Pindi 
Ulla moram facere, neque Aonia Aganippe." 

Virgil himself, on the present occasion, was certainly not de- 
tained in any of these places. Let us try whether we cannot 
come toward the original with no greater deviation, and some- 
what less' dulness : — 

"Where were ye,. O ye nymphs, when Daphnis died^ 
For not on Pindus were ye, nor beside 
Peneiis in his softer glades, nor where 
Acis might well expect you, once your care. 
But neither Acis did your steps detain, 
Nor strong Anapus rushing forth amain, 
Nor high-browed Etna with her forest chain." 

Harmonious as are the verses of Theocritus, the Greek lan- 
guage itself could not bear him above Milton in his " Lycidas." 
He had the good sense to imitate the versification of Tasso's 
" Aminta," employing rhyme where it is ready at hand, and 
permitting his verses to be longer or shorter, as may happen. 
They are never deficient in sweetness, taken separately, and 
never at the close of a sentence disappoint us. However, we 
cannot but regret the clashing of irreconcilable mythologies. 
Neither in a poem nor in a picture do we see willingly the 
Nymphs and the Druids together ; Saint Peter comes even more 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 309 

inopportunely ; and although in the midst of such scenery we 
may be prepared against wolves with their own heads and 
" maws " and " privy paws," yet we deprecate them when they 
appear with a bishop's : they are then an over-match for us. 
The ancients could not readily run into such errors ; yet 
something of a kind not very dissimilar may be objected to 
Virgil, — 

" Venit Apollo, 
' Galle, quid insanis ? ' inquit." 

When the poet says, " Cynthius aurem vellit et admonuit," we 
are aware that it is merely a form of phraseology ; but among 
those who in Virgil's age believed in Apollo, not one believed 
that he held a conversation with Gallus. The time for these 
familiarities cf gods with mortals had long been over, — 

" Nee se contingi patiuntur lumine claro." 

There was only one of them who could still alight without sus- 
picion among the poets. Phoebus had become a mockery, a 
by-word ; but there never will be a time probably when Love 
shall lose his personality, or be wished out of the way if he has 
crept into a poem. But the poem must be a little temple of 
his own, admitting no other occupant or agent besides himself 
and (at most) two worshippers. 

To return to this first Idyl. Theocritus may be censured 
for representing a continuity of action in one graven piece, 
where the girl smiles on two young men alternately. But his 
defence is ready. He would induce the belief that on looking 
at the perfection of the workmanship we must necessarily know 
not only what is passing, but also what is past and what is to 
come. We see the two foxes in the same spirit, and enter into 
their minds and machinations. We swear to the wickedest of 
the two that we will keep his secret, and that we will help 
him to the uttermost of our power when he declares that he 
(<^aTt) will have the boy's breakfast. Perhaps we might not 
be so steadily his partisan, if the boy himself were not medi- 
tating an ill turn to another creature. He is busy in making a 
little cage for the cicala. Do we never see the past and the 
future in the pictures of Edwin Landseer, who exercises over 
all the beasts of the field and fowls of the air an undivided and 
unlimited dominion, koI voov lyvw ? 



3IO THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

We shall abstain, as far as may be, in this review from verbal 
criticism, for which the judicious editor, after many other great 
scholars, has left but little room ; but we cannot consent with 
him to omit the hundred and twentieth verse, merely because 
we find it in the fifth Idyl, nor because he tells us it is rejected 
in the best editions. Verses have been repeated both by Lu- 
cretius and by Virgil. In the present case the sentence with- 
out it seems obtruncated, and wants the peculiar rhythm of 
Theocritus, which is complete and perfect with it. In the last 
two verses are aiSe -)(ijxaLpai Ov jxt] o-Kipraa-qr^. Speaking to the 
she-goats he could not well say at, which could only be said in 
speaking oflhtra. Probably the right reading is wSe, although 
we believe there is no authority for it. The repetition of that 
word is graceful, and adds to the sense. " Come hither, Kis- 
saitha ! milk this one ; but, you others, do not leap about 
here, lest, etc." The poet tells us he will hereafter sing more 
sweetly : it is much to say ; but he will keep his promise. He 
speaks in the character of Thyrsis. When the goatherd gives 
the cup to the shepherd he wishes his mouth to be filled with 
honey and with the honty-comb ! 

Idyl II. is a monologue, and not bucohc. Cimsetha, an en- 
chantress, is in love with Delphis. The poem is curious, con- 
taining a complete system of incantation as practised by the 
Greeks. Out of two verses, by no means remarkable, Virgil has 
framed some of the most beautiful in all his works. Whether 
the Idyl was in this particular copied from ApoUonius, or 
whether he in the Argonautics had it before him, is uncertain. 
Neither of them is so admirable as, — 

" Sylvasque et sasva quierant 
^quora. 

At non infelix animi Phcenissa ; neque unquam 
Solvitur in somnos, oculisve aut pectore ^loctem 
Accipit: ingeminant curse, rursusque resurgens 
Ssevit amor. 

The woods and stormy waves were now at rest, 

But not the hapless Dido ; never sank 

She into sleep, never received she night 

Into her bosom ; grief redoubled grief, 

And love sprang up more fierce the more repressed." 

Idyl III. A goatherd, whose name is not mentioned, de- 
clares his love, with prayers and expostulations, praises and re- 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 3 II 

proaches, to Amaryllis. The restlessness of passion never was 
better expressed. The tenth and eleventh lines are copied by 
Virgil, with extremely ill success : — 

" Qicod potui, puero sylvestri ex arbore leda 
Aurea mala decern misi, eras altera mittam." 

How poor is quod potui / and what a selection (lecta) is that 
of crabs ! moreover, these were sent as a present (misi), and 
not offered in person. There is not even the action, such as 
it is, but merely the flat relation of it. Instead of a narration 
about sending these precious crabs, and the promise of as 
many more on the morrow, here in Theocritus the attentive 
lover says, " Behold ! I bring you ten apples. I gathered 
them myself from the tree whence you desired me to gather 
them ; to-morrow I will bring you more. Look upon my soul- 
tormenting grief ! I wish I were a bee that I might come into 
your grotto, penetrating through the ivy and fern, however 
thick about you." Springing up and away from his dejection 
' and supplication, he adds wildly, — 

Nw iyvuiv rhv "Epcora : 0apbs Oehs 7} pa Xeaivas 
Macrhhv iOTjXa^e, Spvfi^ Se /xiy erpeipe /^aTTjp-^ 

Now know T Love, a cruel God, who drew 
A lioness's teat, and in the forest grew. 

Virgil has amplified the passage to no purpose : — 

"Nunc scio quid sit amor; duris in cotibus ilium 
Ismarus aut Rhodope aut extremi Garamantes 
"Nee generis nostri puerum nee sanguinis edunt." 

Where is the difference of meaning here between genus and 
sanguis ? And why all this bustle about Ismarus and Rhodope 
and the Garamantes? A lioness in an oak-forest stands in 
place of them all, and much better. Love being the deity, 
not the passion, qui would have been better than qtiid, both 
in propriety and in sound. There follows, — 

" Alter ab undecimo jam turn me ceperat annus." 

1 We have given, not the Editor's, but our own punctuation : none 
after OeSs ; for if there were any in that place, we should have wished the 
words were fiaphv de6v. 



312 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

This is among the most faulty expressions in Virgil. The 
words "jam turn me " sound woodenly ; and "me ceperat annus " 
is scarcely Latin. Perhaps the poet wrote mihi, abbreviated to 
7m, — mihi coeperat annus. There has been a doubt regarding 
the exact meaning ; but this should raise none. The meaning 
is, "I was entering my thirteenth year." " Unus ab undecimo " 
would be the twelfth ; of course " alter ab undecimo " must 
be the thirteenth. 

Virgil is little more happy in his translations from Theo- 
critus than he is in those from Homer. It is probable that 
they were only school exercises, — too many, and in his opin- 
ion, too good to be thrown away. J. C. Scaliger, zealous for 
the great Roman poet, gives him the preference over Homer 
in every instance where he has copied him. But in fact there 
is nowhere a sentence, and only a single verse anywhere, in 
which he rises to an equality with his master. He says of 
Fame, — 

" Ingrediturque solo et caput inter sidera condit." 

The noblest verse in the Latin language. 

Idyl IV. " Battus and Corydon." ^ The greater part is tedi- 
ous ; but at verse thirty-eight begins a tender grief of Battus 
on the death of his Amaryllis. Corydon attempts to console 
him : "You must be of good courage, my dear Battus ! Things 
may go better with you another day." To which natural and 
brief reflection we beheve all editions have added two verses as 
spoken by Corydon. Nevertheless we suspect that Theocritus 
gave the following one to Battus, and that he says in reply, or 
rather in refutation, "There are hopes in the living, but the 
dead leave us none." Then says Corydon, "The skies are 
sometimes serene and sometimes rainy." Battus is comforted ; 
he adds but dapa-ew, for he perceives on a sudden that the 
calves are nibbling the olives. Good Battus has forgotten at 
once all his wishes and regrets for Amaryllis, and would rather 

1 The close of verse thirty-one is printed a re ZolkvpOos; in other edi- 
tions &, ZaKvvdos. Perhaps both are wrong. The first syllable of ZaKwOos 
is short, which is against the latter reading; and re would be long be- 
fore Z, which is against the former. Might not a shepherd who uses the 
Doric dialect have said AaKwOos? We have heard of a coin inscribed 
t^aKvvOiwv. In Virgil we read nemorosa Zacynthos ; but it seems impossi- 
ble that he should have written the word with a Z. 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 313 

have a stout cudgel. His animosity soon subsides, however, 
and he asks Corydon an odd question about an old shepherd, 
which Corydon answers to his satisfaction and delight. 

Idyl V. Comatas, a goatherd, and Lacon, a shepherd, ac- 
cuse each other of thievery. They carry on their recrimina- 
tions with much spirit ; but the beauty of the verses could 
alone make the contest tolerable. After the fortieth are sev- 
eral which Virgil has imitated with little honor to his selection. 
Theocritus, always harmonious, is invariably the most so in 
description. This is, however, too long continued in many 
places ; but here we might wish it had begun earlier and lasted 
longer. Lacon says, — 

" Sweeter beneath this olive will you sing, 
By the grove-side and by the running spring, 
Where grows the grass in bedded tufts, and where 
The shrill cicada shakes the slumberous air." 

This is somewhat bolder than the original will warrant, but not 
quite so bold as Virgil's " rumpunt arbusta cicadse." It is 
followed by what may be well in character with two shepherds 
of Sybaris, but what has neither pleasantry nor novelty to re- 
commend it; and the answer would have come with much 
better grace uninterrupted. Comatas, after reminding Lacon 
of a very untoward action in which both were implicated, thus 
replies : — 

" I will not thither : cypresses are here. 
Oaks, and two springs that gurgle cool and clear ; 
And bees are flying for their hives, and through 
The shady branches birds their talk pursue." 

They both keep their places, and look out for an arbitrator 
to decide on the merit of their songs. Morson, a woodman, is 
splitting a tree near them, and they call him. There is some- 
thing very dramatic in their appeal, and in the objurgation that 
follows. The contest is carried on in extemporary verses, two 
at a time. After several, Comatas says, "AH my she-goats, 
excepting two, are bearers of twins ; nevertheless, a girl who 
sees me among them says, 'Unfortunate creature ! do you milk 
them all yourself? ' " Lacon, as the words now stand, repHes, 
" Pheu ! pheu ! " an exclamation which among the tragedians 
expresses grief and anguish, but which here signifies "Psha, 



314 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

psha." Now, it is evident that Comatas had attempted to 
make Lacon jealous, by telling him how sorry the girl was that 
he should milk the goats himself without anybody to help him. 
Lacon in return is ready to show that he also had his good 
fortune. There is reason therefore to suspect that the name 
ActKwv should be Adixwv, because from all that precedes we may 
suppose that Lacon was never possessed of such wealth, and 
that Comatas would have turned him into ridicule if he had 
boasted of it. " Psha ! psha ! you are a grand personage with 
your twin-bearing goats, no doubt ; but you milk them your- 
self. Now, Damon is richer than you are ; he fills pretty 
nearly twenty hampers with cheeses." 

This seems indubitable from the following speech of La- 
con. Not to be teased any more after he had been taunted 
by Comatas that Clearista, although he was a goatherd, threw 
apples at him and began to sing the moment he drove his herd 
by her, Lacon, out of patience at last, says, " Cratidas makes 
me wild with that beautiful hair about the neck." There 
could have been no room for this if he had spoken of himself, 
however insatiable ; for in a later verse Cratidas seems already 
to have made room for another, — 

'AW* 67^ Evfi-riSevs ipafxai (xeya. 

Finding Damon here in Theocritus, we may account for his 
appearance in Virgil. No Greek letters are more easily mis- 
taken one for the other than the capital A for A, and the small 
K for /x. In the one hundred and fifth verse, Comatas boasts 
of possessing a cup sculptured by Praxiteles. This is no very 
grave absurdity in such a braggart : it suits the character. 
Virgil, who had none to support for his shepherd, makes him 
state that his is only "divhii opus Alcimedontis." 

It may be remarked, in conclusion, that no other Idyl con- 
tains so many pauses after the fourth foot, which Hermann 
calls bucolic ; nearly half of the verses have this cadence. 

Idyl VI. This is dramatic, and is addressed to Aratus. 
The shepherds Damsetas and Daphnis had driven their flocks 
into one place, and sitting by a fountain began a song about 
Polyphemus and Galatea. Daphnis acts the character of 
Galatea, Damstas of Polyphemus. The various devices of 
the gigantic shepherd to make her jealous, and his confidence 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 315 

of success in putting them into practice are very amusing. 
His slyness in giving a secret sign to set the dog at her, and 
the dog knowing that he loved her in his heart, and pushing his 
nose against her thigh instead of biting her, are such touches 
of true poetry as are seldom to be found in pastorals. In the 
midst of these our poet has been thought to have committed 
one anachronism. But where Galatea is said to have mistaken 
the game, when — 

(pevyei (piXeovra Kol oi) (piXiovra SiciKei 
Kal Thv airb ypafx-fxas Kive7 \i6ov, 

" Seeks him who loves not, him who loves, avoids : 
And makes false moves," — 

she herself is not represented as the speaker, nor is Polyphe- 
mus, but Daphnis. It is only at the next speech that either 
of the characters comes forth in person ; here Damastas is the 
Polyphemus, and acts his part admirably. 

Idyl VII. The last was different in its form and character 
from the five preceding; the present is more different still. 
The poet, on his road to Alexandria with Eucritus and Amyn- 
tas, meets Phrasidamus and Antigenes, and is invited to ac- 
company them to the festival of Ceres, called Thalysia. He 
falls in with Lycidas of Cidon, and they relate their love- 
stories. This Idyl closes with a description of summer just 
declining into autumn. The invocation to the Nymphs is in 
the spirit of Pindar, 

Idyl VIII. ^ The subject is a contest in singing between 
Menalcas and Daphnis for a pipe. Here are some verses of 
exquisite simplicity, which Virgil has most clumsily translated : 

" Ego hunc vitulum, ne/orfe recuses, etc. 
De grege non ausim quidquam deponere tecum, 
Est mihi namque domi pater, est injiista noverca, 
Bisque die numerant zxrHoo pecus . . . alter et hmdos^' 

1 The first two lines are the least pleasant to the ear of any in this 
melodious poet. 

Ad(pVL^i TcD X'^p'^^ \ V ri . . . avvi)VTfro fiovKo\io \ v ti 
MaAa viixaiv &>s (pa | v ti, etc. 

'Q,s (pavri is found in all editions ; but Pierson has suggested AiScpavre, 
Diophantus was a friend of Theocritus, addressed in Idyl XXI. 



3l6 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

It is evident that Virgil means by " pecus " the sheep only ; 
" pecora " at this day means a ewe in Italian. Virgil's Me- 
nalcas had no objection to the robbery, but was afraid of the 
chastisement. 

The Menalcas of Theocritus says, " I will never lay what be- 
longs to my father, but I have a pipe which I made myself; " 
and according to his account of it, it was no ordinary piece of 
workmanship. Damsetas, it appears, had made exactly such 
another, quite as good ; and the cane of which it was made cut 
his finger in making it. They carry on the contest in such 
sweet hexameters and pentameters as never were heard before 
or since ; but they finish with hexameters alone. The prize is 
awarded to Daphnis by the goatherd who is arbitrator. He 
must have been a goatherd of uncommonly fine discernment. 
The match seems equal; perhaps the two following verses 
turned the balance : — 

'AA.\' uTrb tS TreTpq. Ta5' aero fiat, ajKas exoiV tv, 
'Svyofia fiaX' iffopwv, ray ^tKe\av is a\a. 

Of these, as of those above, we can only give the meaning ; 
he who can give a representation of them, can give a represen- 
tation of the sea-breezes : — 

" It never was my wish to have possessed 
The land of Pelops and his golden store ; 
But only, as I hold you to my breast, 
Glance at our sheep and our Sicilian shore." 

Idyl IX. Again Menalcas and Daphnis ; but they must 
both have taken cold. 

Idyl X. Milo and Battus are reapers. Milo asks Battus 
what ails him, that he can neither draw a straight furrow nor 
reap like his neighbors. For simplicity none of the pastorals 
is more delightful, and it abounds in rustic irony. 

Idyl XI. is addressed to Nikias of Miletus, and appears to 
have been written in Sicily, by the words 6 KvkXwi]/ 6 Trap yj/juv. 
It describes the love of Polyphemus for Galatea, his appeal to 
her, his promises (to the extent of eleven kids and four bear- 
cubs), and his boast that if he cannot have her, he can find 
another perhaps more beautiful; for that many are ready 
enough to play with him, challenging him to that effect, and 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 317 

giggling (KtxAt^oi/Tt) when he listens to them. Virgil's imi- 
tation of this Idyl is extremely and more than usually feeble. 
The last verse however of Theocritus is somewhat flat.^ 

Idyl XII. We now arrive at the first of those Idyls of 
which the genuineness has been so pertinaciously disputed.^ 
And why? Because forsooth it pleased the author to compose 
it in the Ionic dialect. Did Burns, who wrote mostly in the 
Scottish, write nothing in the EngUsh ? With how much bet- 
ter reason has the competitor of Apollonius and Callimachus 
deserted the Doric occasionally ! Meleager and other writers 
of inscriptions mix frequently Ionic forms with Doric. In fact, 
the most accurate explorers must come at last to the conclusion, 
that even in the pastoral portion of these Idyls scarcely a single 
one is composed throughout of unmingled Doric. The ear 
that is accustomed to the exuberant flow of Theocritus, will 
never reject as spurious this melodious and graceful poem. 
Here, and particularly toward the conclusion, as very often 
elsewhere, he writes in the style and spirit of Pindar, while he 
celebrates the loves extolled by Plato. 

Idyl XIII. is addressed to Nikias, as the eleventh was. It 
is not a dialogue ; it is a narrative of the loss of Hylas. The 
same story is related by Propertius in the most beautiful of his 
Elegies. 

Idyl XIV. is entitled " Cynisca's Love," and is a dialogue 
between her husband ^schines and his friend Thyonichus. 
Cynisca had taken a fancy to Lucos. At an entertainment 
given by ^schines, a very mischievous guest, one Apis, sings 

1 ^aov 5e Stay' ^ XP"""^" eSuKey. 

" He lived more pleasantly than if he had given gold for it." 

This is barely sense ; nor can it be improved without a bold substi- 
tution, — 

•^ Xpvffhv exaiv ris. 

Such terminations are occasionally to be found in our poet ; for 
example, — 

Idyl I. aWa /Jidxev fxoi. Idyl II. offffov iyS diiv. Idyl III. eJ <pi\eeis 
jue, and three lines farther on, ovvex' exw (xev, etc. 

2 The title of this is " Aites," which among the Thessalians was what, 
according to the poet in v. 13, ilffirvdXos was among the Spartans, — the 
one Ttapa, rh rhv ipdifjifvov elaaieiv, the other from elaitvelv rhv epura t^ 
ayairuvTi. 



3l8 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS, 

about a wolf (Avko<s) , who was quite charming, ^schines had 
had some reason for jealousy before. Hearing Cynisca sigh at 
the name of Lucos, he can endure it no longer, and gives her 
a slap in the face, then another, and so forth, until she runs 
out of the house and takes refuge with her Lucos day and 
night. All this the husband relates to Thyonichus ; and the 
verses from the thirty-fourth to the thirty- eighth, OakTr^ <J)lXov, 
are very laughable. Thyonichus advises that so able a boxer 
should enter the service of Ptolemy. 

Idyl XV. "The Syracusan Gossips," Never was there so 
exact, or so delightful a description of such characters. There 
is a little diversity, quite enough, between Praxinoe and Gorgo. 
Praxinoe is fond of dress ; conceited, ignorant, rash, abusive in 
her remarks on her husband, ambitious to display her knowl- 
edge as well as her finery, and talking absurdly on what she 
sees about her at the festival of Adonis. Gorgo is desirous of 
insinuating her habits of industry. There are five speakers, — 
Gorgo, Praxinoe, Eunoe, an old woman, and a traveller, besides 
a singing girl who has nothing to do with the party or the 
dialogue. 

Gorgo. Don't talk in this way against your husband while 
your baby is by. See how he is looking at you. 

Praxinoe. Sprightly my pretty Zopyrion ! I am not talking 
of papa. 

Gorgo. By Proserpine, he understands you ! Papa is a jewel 
of a papa. 

After a good deal of tattle they are setting out for the fair, 
and the child shows a strong desire to be of the party. 

Gorgo. I can't take you, darling ! There 's a hobgoblin on 
the other side of the door, and there 's a biting horse. Ay, ay, 
cry to your heart's content ! Do you think I would have you 
lamed for life ? Come, come, let us be off ! 

Laughter is irrepressible at their mishaps and exclamations 
in the crowd. This poem, consisting of one hundred and 
forty-four verses, is the longest in Theocritus, excepting the 
heroics on Hercules. The comic is varied and relieved by the 
song of a girl on Adonis. She notices everything she sees, 
and describes it as it appears to her. After an invocation 
to Venus she has a compliment for Berenice, not without an 
eye to the candied flowers and white pastry, and the pretty 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 319 

little baskets containing mossy gardens and waxwork Adonises, 
and tiny Loves flying over, — 

Otoi aTjSovidrjes e<pe^6/j.evot iwl SevSpoov 
HwTWVTai, impvywv Treipci/xevoi u^ov ott' tj^ca. 

"Like the young nightingales, some nestling close, 
Some plying the fresh wing from bough to bough." 

Idyl XVI. "The Graces." Here Hiero is reminded how 
becoming is liberality in the rich and powerful ; and here is 
sometimes a plaintive under-song in the praise. The attributes 
of the Graces were manifold ; the poet has them in view prin- 
cipally as the distributors of just rewards. We have noticed 
the resemblance he often bears to Pindar; nowhere is it so 
striking as in this and the next. The best of Pindar's odes is 
not more energetic throughout ; none of them surpass these 
two in the chief qualities of that admirable poet, — rejection 
of what is light and minute, disdain of what is trivial, and se- 
lection of those blocks from the quarry which will bear strong 
strokes of the hammer and retain all the marks of the chisel. 
Of what we understand by sublimity he has little ; but he 
moves in the calm majesty of an elevated mind. Of all poets 
he least resembles those among us whom it is the fashion most 
to admire at the present day. The verses of this address to 
Hiero by Theocritus, from the thirty-fourth to the forty-seventh, 
are as sonorous and elevated as the best of Homer's ; and so 
are those beginning at the ninety-eighth verse to the end. 

Idyl XVII. This has nothing of the Idyl in it, but is a 
noble eulogy on Ptolemy Philadelphus, son of Ptolemy Lagus 
and Berenice, Warton is among the many who would deduct 
it from the works of our poet. It is grander even than the 
last on Hiero, in which he appears resolved to surpass all that 
Pindar has written on the earlier king of that name. It is only 
in versification that it differs from him ; in comprehensiveness, 
power, and majesty, and in the manner of treating the subject, 
the same spirit seems to have guided the same hand. 

Idyl XVIII. "The Epithalamium of Helen." There were 
two species of epithalamium, — the kqljxtjtikov, such as this, 
and such likewise as that of Catullus, sung as the bride was 
conducted to her chamber; and the eyeprtKoj/, sung as she 
arose in the morning. The poet, in the first verses, introduces 



320 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

twelve Spartan girls crowned with hyacinths, who sing and 
dance about Menelaus. " And so you are somewhat heavy in 
the knees, sweet spouse ! rather fond of sleep, are you? You 
ought to have gone to sleep at the proper time, and have let a 
young maiden play with other young maidens at her mother's 
until long after daybreak." Then follow the praises of Helen, 
wishes for her prosperity, and promises to return at the crowing 
of the cock. 

Idyl XIX. " Kariocleptes, or the Hive-stealer," contains 
but eight verses. It is the story of Cupid stung by a bee, — 
the first and last bee that ever stung all the fingers (AaKTuXa 
ttcivt' vTvivv^(.v) of both hands ; for it is not x^'^pos but -^^^ipZiv. 
Having said in the first verse that the bee stung him as he was 
plundering the hive, we may easily suspect in what part the 
wound was inflicted ; and among the extremely few things we 
could wish altered or omitted in Theocritus are the words — 

S/fpaSe ■)(jiipSiv, 
AaKTi/Aa ko.vQ'' virei'v^ep. 'O 3' &\yee. 

All the needful and all the ornamental would be comprised 



m 



Kriplov €K atfiPXciiy <rv\e6ixevov, f)s x^p' ^<pv(T(re, etc. 



Idyl XX. "The Oxherd." He complains 'of Eunica, who 
holds his love in derision and finds fault with hi3 features, 
speech, and manners. From plain downright contemptuous- 
ness she bursts forth into irony, — 

&s aypla TrattrSety, 
*ils rpv<pephv \a\4eis, &s KooTiKa, p-fi/jLara (ppaffSeis, etc. 

" How rustic is your play ! 
How coarse your language I " etc. 

He entertains a very different opinion of himself, boasts that 
every girl upon the hills is in love with him, and is sure that 
only a " town lady " (which he thinks is the same thing as a 
"lady of the town ") could have so little taste. There is sim- 
plicity in this Idyl, but it is the worst of the author's. 

Idyl XXI. " The Fisherman." Two fishermen were lying 
stretched on seaweed in a wattled hut, and resting their heads 
against the wall composed of twigs and leaves. Around them 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 321 

were spread all the implements of their trade, which are speci- 
fied in very beautiful verse. They arose before dawn, and one 
said to the other, " They speak unwisely who tell us that the 
nights are shorter in summer when the days are longer, for 
within the space of this very night I have dreamed innumer- 
able dreams. Have you ever learned to interpret them ? " 
He then relates how he dreamed of having caught a golden 
fish, how afraid he was that it might be the favorite fish of 
Neptune or Amphitrite. His fears subsided, and he swore to 
himself that he would give up the sea forever and be a king. 
" I am now afraid of having sworn any such oath," said he. 
" Never fear," replied the other ; " the only danger is of dying 
with hunger in the midst of such golden dreams." 

Idyl XXII. This is the first heroic poem in Theocritus ; it 
is in two parts. First is described the fight of Polideukes 
and Amycus ; secondly, of Castor and Lynceus. Of Amycus 
the poet says that " his monstrous chest was spherical,^'' — 
ecrc^ai/awTO. 

Omitting this, we may perhaps give some idea of the scene. 

" In solitude both wandered, far away 
From those they sailed with. On the hills above, 
Beneath a rocky steep, a fount they saw 
Full of clear water ; and below were more 
That bubbled from the bottom, silvery, 
Crystalline. In the banks around grew pines, 
Poplars, and cypresses and planes, and flowers 
Sweet-smelling; pleasant work for hairy bees 
Born in the meadows at the close of spring. 
There in the sunshine sat a savage man, 
Horrid to see ; broken were both his ears 
With cestuses, his shoulders were like rocks 
Polished by some vast river's ceaseless whirl." 

ApoUonius and Valerius Flaccus have described the fight of 
Amycus and Polydeukes. Both poets are clever, Valerius more 
than usually. Theocritus is masterly. 

Idyl XXIII. " Dyseros, or the Unhappy Lover." The sub- 
ject of this is the same as the Corydon of Virgil ; but here the 
statue of Cupid falls on and crushes the inflexible. 

Idyl XXIV. " Herachskos, or the Infant Hercules." There 
are critics of so weak a sight in poetry as to ascribe this mag- 
nificent and wonderful work to Bion or Moschus. Hercules is 



322 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

cradled in Amphitryon's shield. The description of the ser- 
pents, of the supernatural light in the chamber, and the proph- 
ecy of Tiresias, are equal to Pindar and Homer. 

Idyl XXV. "Hercules the Lion- Killer." This will bear no 
comparison with the preceding. The story is told by Hercules 
himself, and the poet has taken good care that it should not be 
beyond his capacity. 

Idyl XXVI. " The Death of Pentheus." Little can be said 
for this also ; only that the style is the pure antique. 

Idyl XXVII. " Daphnis and the Shepherdess " has been 
translated by Dryden. He has given the Shepherdess a 
muslin gown bespangled. This easy and vigorous poet too 
often turns the country into the town, smells of the ginshop, 
and staggers toward the brothel. He was quite at home with 
Juvenal, imitating his scholastic strut, deep frown, and loud 
declamation. No other has done such justice to Lucretius, to 
Virgil, to Horace, and to Ovid ; none is so dissimilar to The- 
ocritus. Wherever he finds a stain, he enlarges its circumfer- 
ence, and renders it vivid and indelible. In this lively poem 
we wish the sixty-fifth and sixty-sixth verses were omitted. 

Idyl XXVIII. Neither this nor any one of the following 
can be called an Idyl. The metre is the pentameter chori- 
ambic, like Catullus's "Alphene immemor," etc. 

Idyl XXIX. Expostulation against Inconstancy. The metre 
is the dactylic pentameter, in which every foot is a dactyl, 
excepting the first, which is properly a trochee ; this however 
may be converted to a spondee or an iambic, enjoying the 
same license as the Phaleucian. In the twentieth verse there 
is a false quantity, where fee is short before ^. 

Idyl XXX. The "Death of Adonis." Venus orders the 
Loves to catch the guilty boar and bring him before her. 
They do so ; he makes his defence against the accusation, 
which is that he only wished to kiss the thigh of Adonis ; and 
he offers his tusk in atonement, and if the tusk is insufficient, 
his cheek. Venus pitied him, and he was set at liberty. Out 
of gratitude and remorse, he went to a fire and burned his 
teeth down to the sockets. Let those who would pillage 
Theocritus of his valuables show the same contrition ; we then 
promise them this poem, to do what they will with. 

The "Inscriptions," which follow, are all of extreme sim- 



THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 323 

plicity and propriety. These are followed by the poems of 
Bion and Moschus. Bion was a native of Smyrna, Moschus 
(his scholar) of Syracuse. They are called authors of Idyls, 
but there is nothing of idyl or pastoral in their works. The 
worst of them, as is often the case, is the most admired. Bion 
tells us that the boar bit the thigh of Adonis with his tusk, — 
the white thigh with the white tusk ; and that Adonis grieved 
Venus by breathing softly while the blood was running. Such 
faults as these are rarely to be detected in Greek poetry, but 
frequently on the revival of Pastoral in Italy. 

Chaucer was born before that epidemic broke out which 
soon spread over Europe, and infected the En^sli poetry as 
badly as any. The thoughts of our poets in the EUzabethan 
age often look the stronger because they are complicated and 
twisted. We have the boldness to confess that we are no 
admirers of the Elizabethan style. Shakspeare stood alone in 
a fresh and vigorous and vast creation ; yet even his first-bom 
were foul offenders, bearing on their brows the curse of a fallen 
state. Elsewhere, in every quarter, we are at once slumberous 
and restless under the heaviness of musk and benzoin, and sigh 
for the unattainable insipidity of fresh air. We are regaled 
with dishes in which no condiment is forgotten, nor indeed 
anything but simply the meat ; and we are ushered into 
chambers where the tapestry is all composed of dwarfs and 
giants, and the floor all covered with blood. Thomson, in the 
"Seasons," has given us many beautiful descriptions of inani- 
mate nature ; but the moment any one speaks in them the 
charm is broken. The figures he introduces are fantastical. 
The " Hassan " of Collins is excellent ; he however is surpassed 
by Bums and Scott ; and Wordsworth, in his " Michael," is 
nowise inferior to them. Among the moderns no poet, it 
appears to us, has written an Idyl so perfect, so pure and 
simple in expression, yet so rich in thought and imagery, as the 
" Godiva " of Alfred Tennyson. Wordsworth, like Thomson, 
is deficient in the delineation of character, even of the rustic, 
in which Scott and Bums are almost equal. But some beau- 
tiful Idyls might be extracted from the " Excursion," which 
would easily split into laminae, and the residue might with little 
loss be blown away. Few are suspicious that they may be led 
astray and get benighted by following simplicity too far. If 



324 THE IDYLS OF THEOCRITUS. 

there are pleasant fruits growing on the ground, must we there- 
fore cast aside as unwholesome those which have required the 
pruning- knife to correct and the ladder to-reach them ? Beau- 
tiful thoughts are seldom disdainful of sonorous epithets ; we 
find them continually in the Pastorals of Theocritus ; sometimes 
we see, coming rather obtrusively, the wanton and indelicate, 
but never (what poetry most abhors) the mean and abject. 
Widely different from our homestead poets, the Syracusan is 
remarkable for a facility that never draggles, for a spirit that 
never flags, and for a variety that never is exhausted. His 
reflections are frequent, but seasonable, — soon over, like the 
shadows of spiring clouds on flowery meadows, and not hanging 
heavily upon the scene, nor depressing the vivacity of the 
blithe antagonists. 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

Doering's first edition of Catullus came out nearly half a 
century before his last edition. When he returned to his 
undertaking, he found many things, he tells us, to be struck 
out, many to be altered and set right. We believe we shall 
be able to show that several are still remaining in these 
predicaments. 

They who in our days have traced the progress of poetry 
have pursued it generally not as poets or philosophers, but as 
hasty observers or cold chronologists. If we take our stand 
on the Roman world just before the subversion of its free in- 
stitutions, we shall be in a position to look backward on 
Greece and forward on Italy and England ; and we shall be 
little disposed to pick up and run away with the stale com- 
ments left by those who went before us, but rather to loiter a 
little on the way, and to indulge, perhaps too complacently, 
in the freshness of our own peculiar opinions and favorite 
speculations. 

The last poet who flourished at Rome before the extinc- 
tion of the republic by the arms of Julius Caesar was Catullus ; 
and the last record we possess of him is about the defama- 
tory verses which he composed on that imperishable name. 
Cicero, to whom he has expressed his gratitude for defending 
him in a law-suit, commends on this occasion the equanimity of 
Caesar, who Hstened to the reading of them in his bath before 
dinner. There is no reason to believe that the poet long sur- 
vived his father's guest, the Dictator ; but his decease was un- 
noticed in those^times of agitation and dismay, nor is the date 
of it to be ascertained. It has usually been placed at the age 
of forty-six, four years after Caesar's. Nothing is more absurd 
than the supposition of Martial, which however is but a poeti- 
cal one, — 

" Si forsan tener ausus est Catullus 
Magno mittere Passerem Maroni." 



326 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

(It is scarcely worth a remark by the way, that si fors2ca. is not 
Latin ; si forte would be : si and an can have nothing to do 
with each other.) But allowing that Virgil had written his 
" Ceiris " and " Culex," two poems inferior to several in the Eton 
school-exercises, he could not have published his first Eclogues 
in the lifetime of Catullus ; and if he had, the whole of them 
are not worth a single Phaleucian or scazon of the vigorous 
and impassioned Veronese. 

But Virgil is not to be depreciated by us, as he too often 
has been of late, both in this country and abroad ; nor is he at 
all so when we deliver our opinion that his Pastorals are almost 
as inferior to those of Theocritus as Pope's are to his. Even 
in these, there not only are melodious verses, but harmonious 
sentences, appropriate images, and tender thoughts. Once 
or twice we find beauties beyond any in Theocritus; for 
example, — 

" Ite, capellse ! 

Noil ego vos posthac viridi projectus in antro 

Dumosa pendere procul de rupe videbo." 

Yet in other places he is quite as harsh as if he had been ever 
so negligent. One instance is, — 

" Nunc victi, tristes, quoniam Fors omnia versat, 
Hos illi (quod nee bene vertat) mittimus hasdos. 

" But now we must stoop 

To the worst in the troop, 
And must do whatsoever that vagabond wills : 

I wish the old goat 

Had a horn in his throat, 
And the kids and ourselves were again on the hills." 

Supposing the first of the Eclogues. to have appeared seven 
years after the death of Catullus, and this poet to have com- 
posed his earliest works in the lifetime of Lucretius, we cannot 
but ponder on the change of the Latin language in so short a 
space of time. Lucretius was by birth a Roman, and wrote in 
Rome ; yet who would not say unhesitatingly that there is 
more of what Cicero calls urbane in the two provincials, Virgil 
and Catullus, than in the authoritative and stately man who 
leads Memmius from the camp into the gardens of Epicurus. 
He complains of poverty in the Latin tongue ; but his com- 
plaint is only on its insufficiency in philosophical terms, which 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 327 

Cicero also felt twenty years later, and called in Greek aux- 
iliaries. But in reality the language never exhibited such a 
profusion of richness as in the comedies of Plautus, whose style 
is the just admiration of the Roman orator. 

Cicero bears about him many little keepsakes received from 
this quarter, particularly the diminutives. His fondness for 
them borders on extravagance. Could you believe that the 
language contains in its whole compass a hundred of these ? 
Could you believe that an orator and philosopher was likely to 
employ a quarter of the number? Yet in the various works of 
Cicero we have counted and written down above a hundred 
and sixty. Catullus himself has employed them much more 
sparingly than Cicero, or than Plautus, and always with propriety 
and effect. The playful Ovid never indulges in them, nor does 
Propertius, nor does TibuUus. Nobody is wilhng to suspect 
that Virgil has ever done it ; but he has done it once in — 

" Oscula libavit natas." 

Perhaps they had been turned into ridicule for the misapplica- 
tion of them by some forgotten poet in the commencement of 
the Augustan age. Quintilian might have given us information 
on this : it lay in his road. But whether they died by a natu- 
ral death or a violent one, they did not appear again as a plague 
until after the deluge of the Dark Ages ; and then they in- 
creased and multiphed in the slime of those tepid shallows 
from which Italy in few places has even yet emerged. In the 
lines of Hadrian, — 

" Animula, vagula, blandula," — 

they have been greatly admired, and very undeservedly. Pope 
has made sad work of these. Whatever they are, they did not 
merit such an experimentum crucis at his hands. 

In Catullus no reader of a poetical mind would desire one 
diminutive less. In Politian and such people they buzz about 
our ears insufferably ; and we would waft every one of them 
away, with little heed or concern, if we brush off together with 
them all the squashy insipidities they alight on. 

The imitators of Catullus have indeed been peculiarly un- 
successful. Numerous as they are, scarcely five pieces worth 
remembrance can be found among them. There are persons 



328 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

who have a knowledge of Latinity, there are others who have a 
knowledge of poetry ; but it is not always that the same judge 
decides with equal wisdom in both courts. Some hendecasyl- 
labics of the late Serjeant Lens, an excellent man, a first-rate 
scholar, and a graceful poet, have been rather unduly praised ; 
to us they appear monotonous and redundant. We will tran- 
scribe only the first two for particular notice and illustration : 

" Grates insidiis tuis dolisque 
Vinclis jam refero lubens solutis." 

Never were words more perplexed and involved. He who 
brings them forward as classical is unaware that they are closely 
copied from a beautiful little poem of Metastasio, which J. J. 
Rousseau has tianslated admirably : — 

" Grazie agli inganni tuoi 
Alfin respiro, O Nice ! " 

How much better is the single word inganni than the useless 
and improper insidiis which renders dolis quite unnecessary ! 
A better line would be — 

" Vincla projicio libens soluta." 
Or — 

" Tandem projicio soluta vincla." - 

In fact, it would be a very difficult matter to suggest a worse. 
The most-part of the verses may be transposed in any way 
whatsoever ; each seems to be independent of the rest. They 
are good, upright, sound verses enough, but never a sentence 
of them conciliates the ear. The same objection is justly made 
to nearly all the modern hendecasyllabics. Serjeant Lens has 
also given us too many lines for one Phaleucian piece. The 
metre will admit but few advantageously j it is the very best 
for short poems. This might be broken into three or four, 
and almost in any place indifferently. Like the seta equina, 
by pushing out a head and a tail, each would go on as well 
as ever. 

In how few authors of hendecasyllabics is there one fine 
cadence ! Such, for instance, as those in Catullus : — 

" Soles occidere et redire possunt, 
Nobis qumn semel occidit brevis lux 
Nox est perpetua una dormienda.'^ 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 329 

And those, — 

" Quamvis Candida millies puella 
Euntem revocet, manusque collo 
Ambas injiciens roget morari." 

A.nd twenty more. In the former of these quotations, Catullus 
had before him the best passage in Moschus, which may be 
thus translated : — 

" Ah ! when the mallow in the croft dies down, 
Or the pale parsley or the crisped anise. 
Again they grow, another year they flourish ; 
But we, the great, the valiant, and the wise, 
Once covered over in the hollow earth, 
Sleep a long, dreamless, unawakening sleep." 

The original verses are as harmonious as almost any in the 
language. But the epithet which the poet has prefixed to 
parsley is very undistinguishing. Greek poets more frequently 
than Latin gave those rather which suited the metre than those 
which conveyed a pecuhar representation. Neither the x^Vcopa 
applied to parsley is in any of its senses very appropriate, nor 
are the ^vda\i% and ovkov to anise, but rather to burrage. 

Catullus has had innumerable imitators in the Phaleucian, but 
the only dexterity displayed by them in general is in catching a 
verse and sending it back again like a shuttlecock. Until our own 
times, there is little thought, little imagination, no passion, no ten- 
derness, in the modern Latin poets. Casimir shows most genius 
and most facility ; but Casimir, in his best poem, writes — 

" Sonora buxi filia sutilis." 

Was ever allegory treated with such indignity? What becomes 
of this tight-laced daughter of a box-tree ? She was hanged. 
Where ? On a high poplar. Wherefore ? That she might be 
the more easily come at by the poet. Pontanus too has been 
praised of late ; but throughout his thick volume there is 
scarcely a glimpse of poetry. There are certain eyes which, 
seeing objects at a distance, take snow for sunshine. 

Two verses of Joannes Secundus, almost the only two he 
has written worth remembering, outvalue all we have imported 
from the latter ages. They would have been quoted, even 
from Catullus himself, as among his best, — 

" Non est suaviolum dare, lux mea, sed dare tantum 
Est desiderium flebile suavioli." 



330 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

The six of Bembo on Venice are admirable also. And there 
are two from two French authors, each worth two Pontanuses. 
The first is on the Irish, — 

" Gens ratione fiirens et mentem pasta chimaeris." 

The second (but this is stolen from Manilius) on Franklin, his 
discoveries in electricity, and his energy in the liberation of his 
country, — 

" Eripuit ccelo fulmen sceptrumque tyranno." 

Another has been frequently quoted from a prize poem by 
Canning. Such as it is, it also is stolen — and with much in- 
jury (as stolen things often are) — from the " Nutricia " of 
Politian, among whose poems one only, that on the death of 
Ovid, has any merit. This being the only one which is without 
metrical faults, and the rest abounding in them, a reasonable 
doubt may arise whether he could have written it, — he who 
has written by the dozen such as the following ; — 

" Impedis amplexu — " 
intending hnpedis for a dactyl, — 

" Quando expediret inseris hexametro — " 
for a pentameter, — 

" Mutare domi-num dom-us hsec nescit suum -— " 
for an iambic, — 

"Lucreti fuit hoc, et Euripidis — " 

for a Phaleucian ; and in whom we find Plutarchus short in 
the first syllable, Bis-ve semelve, and Vaticani long in the 
second syllable twice. 

Milton has been thought like Politian in his hexameters and 
pentameters. In his Elegies he is Ovidian ; but he is rather 
the fag than the playfellow of Ovid. Among his Latin poems 
the scazon " De Hominis Archetypo " is the best. In those 
of the moderns there is rarely more than one thing missing ; 
namely, the poetry, which some critics seem to have held for a 
matter of importance. If we may hazard a conjecture, they are 
in the right. Robert Smith is the only one who has ascended 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 33 1 

into the higher regions. But even the best scholars, since 
they receive most of their opinions from tradition, and stunted 
and distorted in the crevices of a quadrangle, will be slowly- 
brought to conclude that his poetry is better (and better it surely 
is) than the greater part of that which dazzles them from the 
luminaries of the Augustan age. In vigor and harmony of dic- 
tion, in the selection of topics, in the rejection of little orna- 
ments, in the total suppression of playful prettinesses, in solidity 
and magnitude of thought, sustained and elevated by the purest 
spirit of poetry, we find nothing in the Augustan age of the 
same continuity, the same extent. We refer to the poem en- 
titled " Platonis Principia," in which there are a hundred and 
eleven such verses as are scarcely anywhere together in all the 
realms of poetry. 

The alcaic ode of the same writer, " Mare Liberum," is not 
without slight blemishes. For instance, at the beginning, — 

■■' "Primo Creator spiritus halitu 

Caliginosi regna silentii 
Turbavit." 

In Latinity there is no distinction between spiritus and halitus ; 
and if theology has made one, the halitus can never be said to 
proceed from the spiritus. In the second verse the lyric metre 
requires silent] for silentn. Cavillers may also object to the 
elision of qua at the conclusion, — 

" Et rura qtca ingentes Amazon 
Rumpit aquas, violentus amnis." 

It has never been elided unless at the close of a polysyllable ; 
as, among innumerable instances, — 

" Obliqua invidia stimulisque agitabat amaris." 

This fact is the more remarkable, since quce and prce are elided ; 
or, speaking more properly, coalesce. 

Et tibi prse invidia Nereides increpitarent. — Propertius. 
QtccB omnia bella devoratis. — Catullus. 
Qu(Z imbelles dant prselia cervi : 
Qt(ce Asia circum. — Virgil. 

But what ode in any language is more animated or more 
sublime ? 



332 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

In reading the Classics we pass over false quantities, and 
defer to time an authority we refuse to reason. But never can 
time acquit Horace of giving us false measure in palus aptaque 
remis, nor in quomodo. Whether you divide or unite the com- 
ponent parts of quomodo, — quo and modo, — the case is the 
same. And as palus is paludis in the genitive case, salus sa- 
lutis, no doubt can exist of its quantity. Modern Latin poets, 
nevertheless, have written saluber, Thomas Warton, a good 
scholar, and if once fairly out of Latinity no bad poet, writes in 
a Phaleucian — 

" Saluberrimis et herbis." 

There is also a strange false quantity in one of the most ac- 
curate and profound grammarians, Menage. He wrote an in- 
scription, in one Latin hexameter, for Mazarin's college, then 
recently erected, — 

" Has Phoebo et Musis Mazarinus consecrat sedes." 

Every vowel is long before z. He knew it, but it escaped his 
observation, as things we know often do. We return from one 
learned man to another, more immediately the object of our 
attention, on whom the same appellation was conferred. 

Catullus has been called the " learned ; " and critics have 
been curious in searching after the origin of this designation. 
Certainly both Virgil and Ovid had greatly more of archaeology, 
and borrowed a great deal more of the Greeks. But Catullus 
was, what Horace claims for himself, the first who imported in- 
to Latin poetry any vast variety of their metres. Evidently he 
translated from the Greek his galliambic on Atys. The proof 
is, that " Ty;;zpanum tubam Cybeles " would be opposite to, and 
inconsistent with, the metre. He must have written Typanum, 
finding tv-kovov before him. But as while he was in the army 
he was stationed some time in Bithynia and Phrygia, perhaps 
he had acquired the language spoken in the highlands of those 
countries ; in the lowlands it was Greek. No doubt his curiosity 
led him to the temple of Cybele, and there he heard the an- 
cient hymns in celebration of that goddess. Nothing breathes 
such an air of antiquity as his galliambic, which must surely 
have been translated into Greek from the Phrygian. Joseph 
Warton in the intemperance of admiration prefers it not only 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 333 

to every work of Catullus, but to every one in the language. 
There is indeed a gravity and solemnity in it, a fitness and 
propriety in every part, unequalled and unrivalled. Poetry 
can however rise higher than these " templa serena," and has 
risen higher with Catullus. No human works are so perfect as 
some of his, but many are incomparably greater. Among the 
works of the moderns, the fables of La Fontaine come nearest 
to perfection; but are there none grander and higher? 

This intemperance of admiration has been less excusable 
in some living critics of modern Latin poetry. Yet when we 
consider how Erasmus, a singiilarly wise and learned man, has 
erred in his judgment on poetry, saying, while he speaks of Sido- 
nius ApoUinaris, "Let us listen to our Pindar," we are disposed 
to be gentle and lenient, even in regard to one who has de- 
clared his opinion that the elegies of Sannazar "■ may compete 
with Tibullus." ^ If they may, it can be only in the number 
of feet ; and there they are quite on an equality. In another 
part of the volume, which contains so curious a decision, some 
verses are quoted from the " Paradise Regained " as " perhaps 
the most musical the author ever produced." Let us pause a 
few moments on this assertion, and examine the verses referred 
to. It will not be without its use to exhibit their real charac- 
ter, because, in coming closer to the examination of Catullus, 
we shall likewise be obliged to confess, that, elegant and grace- 
ful as he is to a degree above all other poets in the more 
elaborate of his compositions, he too is by no means exempt 
from blemishes in his versification. But in Milton they are 
flatnesses ; in Catullus they are asperities, — which is the con- 
trary of what might have been expected from the characters of 
the men. 

There is many a critic who talks of harmony, and whose 
ear seems to have been fashioned out of the callus of his foot. 
"Quotus enim quisque est," as Cicero says, "qui teneat artem 
numerorum atque modorum ! " The great orator himself, con- 
summate master of the science, runs from rhetorical into 
poetical measure at this very place. 

"Numerorum atque modorum" 

^ Mr. Hallam in the first volume of his " Introduction to the Literature 
of Europe," p. 597. 



334 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

is the same in time and modulation as the verses in Horace, — 

" Miserarum est neque amori 
Dare ludum neque dulci," etc. 

Well, but what " are perhaps the most musical verses Milton 
has ever produced? " They are these («' diis placet !') : — 

" Such forces met not, nor so wide a camp, 
When Agrican with all his northern powers 
Besieged Albracca, as romaitces tell, 
The city of Gdlldi^hxoxie, from thence to win 
The fairest of her sex, Angelica 
His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, 
Both Paynira and the peers of Charlemagne." 

There is a sad hiatus in "Albracc^, as." On the whole, 
however, the verses thus unluckily hit upon for harmony are 
fluent, too fluent; they are feeble in the extreme, and little 
better than prose, either in thought or expression. Still, it is 
better to praise accidentally in the wrong place than to censure 
universally. The passage which is before them leads us to that 
magnificent view of the cities and empires, the potentates and 
armies, in all their strength and glory, with which the Tempter 
would have beguiled our Redeemer. These appear to have 
left no impression on the critic, who much prefers what every 
schoolboy can comprehend, and what many -undergraduates 
could have composed. But it is somewhat, no doubt, to praise 
that which nobody ever praised before, and to pass over that 
which suspends by its grandeur the footstep of all others. 

There is prodigious and desperate vigor in the Tempter's 
reply to our Saviour's reproof: — 

" All hope is lost 
Of my reception into grace : what worse ? 
For when no hope is left, is left no fear. 
If there be worse, the expectation more 
Of worse torments me than the feeling can. 
I would be at the worst : worst is my port,^ 
My harbor, and my ultimate repose, 
The end I would attain, my final good." 

Yet Milton, in this " Paradise Regained," seems to be sub- 
ject to strange hallucinations of the ear, — he who before had 

1 A daring critic might suggest fort for port, since harbor makes that 
word unnecessary. 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 335 

greatly excelled all poets of all ages in the science and display 
of harmony. And if in his last poem we exhibit his deficien- 
cies, surely we never shall be accused of disrespect or irrever- 
ence to this immortal man. It may be doubted whether the 
Creator ever created one altogether so great, — taking into 
our view at once (as much indeed as can at once be taken into 
it) his manly virtues, his superhuman genius, his zeal for truth, 
true piety, true freedom, his eloquence in displaying it, his 
contempt of personal power, his glory and exultation in his 
country's. 

Warton and Johnson are of opinion that Milton is defective 
in the sense of harmony. But Warton had lost his ear by 
laying it down on low and swampy places, — on ballads and 
sonnets ; and Johnson was a deaf adder coiled up in the bram- 
bles of party prejudices : he was acute and judicious, he was 
honest and generous, he was forbearing and humane, but he 
was cold where he was overshadowed. The poet's peculiar 
excellence, above all others, was in his exquisite perception of 
rhythm, and in the boundless variety he has given it, both in 
verse and prose. Virgil comes nearest to him in his assiduous 
study of it, and in his complete success. With the poetical 
and oratorical, the harmony is usually in proportion to the 
energy of passion. But the numbers may be transferred ; thus 
the heroic has been carried into the Georgics. There are 
many pomps and vanities in that fine poem which we would 
relinquish unreluctantly for one touch of nature ; such as, — 

" It tristis arator 
Moerentem abjungens fraterna morte juvencum. 

" In sorrow goes the ploughman, and leads off 
Unyoked from his dead mate the sorrowing steer." 

Here however the poet is not seconded by the language. The 
ploughman cannot be going on while he is in the act of sepa- 
rating the dead ox from its partner, as the word // and abjun- 
gens signify. 

We shall presently show that Catullus was the first among the 
Romans in whose heroic verse there is nothing harsh and dis- 
sonant. But it is not necessary to turn to the grander poetry 
of Milton for verses more harmonious than those adduced ; we 
find them even in the midst of his prose. Whether he is to be 



336 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

censured for giving way to his genius in such compositions Is 
remote from the question now before us. But what magnifi- 
cence of thought is here ! how totally free is the expression 
from the encumbrances of amplification, from the crutches 
and cushions of swollen feebleness ! 

" When God commands to take the trumpet 
And blow a shriller and a louder blast, 
It rests not in Man's will what he shall do, 
Or what he shall forbear." 

This sentence in the " Treatise on Prelaty " is printed in prose : 
it sounds like inspiration. " It rested not in Milton's will " to 
crack his organ-pipe, for the sake of splitting and attenuating 
the gush of harmony. 

We will now give the reason for the " falling sickness " with 
which several of his verses are stricken. He was too fond of 
showing what he had read, and the things he has taken from 
others are always much worse than his own. Habituated to 
Italian poetry, he knew that the verses are rarely composed of 
pure iambics, or of iambics mixed with spondees, but contain a 
great variety of feet, or rather of subdivisions. When he wrote 
such a line as — 

*' In the bosom of bliss and light of light," — 

he thought he had sufficient authority in Dante, Petrarca, Ari- 
osto, and Tasso, who wrote — 

Questa selva selvaggia. — Dante. 
Tra le vane speranze. — Petrarca. 
Con la gente di Francia. — Ariosto. 
Canto I'armi pietose. — Tasso. 

And there is no verse whatsoever in any of his poems for the 
metre of which he has not an Italian prototype. 

The critic who knows anything of poetry, and is resolved to 
select a passage from the " Paradise Regained," will prefer this 
other far above the rest, and may compare it, without fear of 
ridicule or reprehension, to the noblest in the nobler poem : 

" And either tropic now 
'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven ; the clouds, 
From many a horrid rift, abortive poured 
Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire. 
In ruin reconciled ; nor slept the winds 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 3^3/ 

Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad 

From the four hinges of the world, and fell 

On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines, 

Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks, 

Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, 

Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then, 

O patient Son of God ! yet only stood'st 

Unshaken ! Nor yet stayed the terror there : 

Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round 

Environed thee ; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, 

Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou 

Sat'st unappalled in calm and sinless peace." 

No such poetry as this has been written since, and Httle at 
any time before. But Homer would not have attributed to the 
pine what belongs to the oak. The tallest pines have super- 
ficial roots; they certainly are never "deep as high," — oaks 
are said to be ; and if the saying is not phytologically true, it is 
poetically, although the oak itself does not quite send 

'' radicem ad Tartara." 
There is another small oversight, — 

" yet only stood'st 
Unshaken." 
Below we find — 

" Safst unappalled." ^ 

But what verses are the following : — 

" And made him bow to the gods of his wives. . . . 
Cast wanton eyes on the daughters of men. . . . 
After forty days' fasting had remained. . . . 
And with these words his temptation pursued. ... 
Not difficult if thou hearken to me." 

1 But Milton's most extraordinary oversight is in " L'AIlegro," — 

" Hence loathed Melancholy ! 
Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight bom." 

Unquestionably he meant to have written Erebus instead of Cerberus, 
whom no imagination could represent as the sire of a goddess. Midnight 
is scarcely to be converted into one, or indeed into any allegorical per- 
sonage : and the word " blackest " is far from aiding it. Milton is sin- 
gularly unfortunate in allegory, but nowhere more so than here. The 
daughter of Cerberus takes the veil, takes the 

" Sable stole of Cyprus lawn," 

and becomes, now her father is out of the way, 

"A nun devout and pure." 



338 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

It is pleasanter to quote such a description as no poet, not 
even Milton himself, ever gave before, of Morning, — 

" Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar 
Of thunder, chased the clouds and laid the winds 
And grisly spectres, which the Fiend had raised 
To tempt the son of God with terrors dire." 

In Catullus we see morning in another aspect ; not per- 
sonified. And a more beautiful description, a sentence on 
the whole more harmonious, or one in which every verse is 
better adapted to its peculiar office, is neither to be found 
nor conceived, — 

" Heic qualis flatu placidum mare matutino 
Horrificans zephyrus proclivas incitat undas, 
Aurora exoriente vagi sub lumina solis. 
Quae tarde primum dementi flamine pulsse 
Procedunt, leni resonant plangore cachinni, 
Post, vento crescente, magis magis increbescunt, 
Parpureaque procul nantes a luce refulgent." 

Our translation is very inadequate : — 

" As, by the Zephyr wakened, underneath 
The sun's expansive gaze the waves move on 
Slowly and placidly, with gentle plash 
Against each other, and light laugh ; but soon, 
The breezes freshening, rough and huge they swell, 
Afar refulgent in the crimson east." 

What a fall is there from these lofty cliffs, dashing back the 
waves against the winds that sent them ! what a fall is there to 
the " wracks and flaws " which Milton tells us — 

" Are to the main as inconsiderable 
And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze.^'' 

In the lines below, from the same poem, the good and bad 
are strangely mingled, — the poet keeping in his verse, how- 
ever, the firmness and majesty of his march : — 

" So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing 
^ Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime, 

Over the wilderness and o^er the plain: 
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem, 
The holy city, lifted high her towers, 
And higher yet the glorious temple reared 
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount 
Of alabaster, topped with golden spires!''' 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 339 

Splendid as this description is, it bears no resemblance what- 
soever to the temple of Jerusalem. It is like one of those 
fancies in which the earlier painters of Florence, Pisa, Lucca, 
and Siena were fond of indulging, — not for similitude, but for 
effect. The poets of Greece and Rome allowed themselves no 
such latitude. The Palace of the Sun, depicted so gorgeously 
by Ovid, where imagination might wander unrestricted, contains 
nowhere an inappropriate decoration. 

No two poets are more dissimilar in thought and feeling 
than Milton and Catullus ; yet we have chosen to place them 
in juxtaposition, because the Latin language in the time of 
Catullus was nearly in the same state as the English in the time 
of Milton. Each had attained its full perfection, and yet the 
vestiges of antiquity were preserved in each. Virgil and Pro- 
pertius were in regard to the one poet what Dryden and Waller 
were in regard to the other : they removed the archaisms, but 
the herbage grew up rarer and slenderer after those extirpations. 
If so consummate a master of versification as Milton is con- 
victed of faults so numerous and so grave in it, pardon will the 
more easily be granted to Catullus. Another defect is likewise 
common to both ; namely, the disposition or ordinance of parts. 
It would be difficult to find in any other two poets, however low 
their station in that capacity, two such signal examples of dis- 
proportion as are exhibited in " The Nuptials of Peleus and 
Thetis " and in " The Masque of Comus." The better part of 
the former is the description of a tapestry; the better part 
of the latter are three undramatic soliloquies. In other re- 
spects, the oversights of Catullus are fewer ; and in " Comus " 
there is occasional extravagance of expression such as we never 
find in Catullus, or in the playful Ovid, or in any the least 
correct of the ancients. For example, we read of 

" The sea-girt isles, 
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay 
The unadorned bosom of the deep." 

How " unadorned," if inlaid with " rich and various gems " ? 
This is a pendant to be placed exactly opposite : — 

" The silken vest Prince Vortigern had on 
Which from a naked Pict his grandsire won." 



340 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

We come presently to 

" The sounds and seas." 

Sounds are parts of seas. Comus, on the borders of North 
Wales, talks of 

" A green mantling vine, 
That crawls along the side of yon small hill," 
and of 

" Plucking ripe clusters." 

Anon we hear of " stabled wolves." What wolves can those 
be? The faults we find in the poet we have undertaken to 
review we shall at the same time freely show. 

Carmen I. "Ad Comelium Nepotem." In verse 4 we 
read — 

" Jam turn aim ausus es." 

We believe the poet, and all the writers of his age, wrote 
quum. Quoi for cui grew obsolete much earlier, but was al- 
ways thus spelled by Catullus. The best authors at all times 
wrote the adverb quum. 

Carmen II. " Ad Passerem Lesbise." In verse 8 we read 
" a<rquiescat ;" the poet wrote " a^quiescat," which sounds 
fuller. 

Carmen III. " Luctus in Morte Passeris." ' This poem and 
the preceding seem to have been admired, both by the ancients 
and the modems, above all the rest. Beautiful indeed they are. 
Grammarians may find fault with the hiatus in 

"O factum mak ! O miselle passer!" 
poets will not. 

We shall now, before we go farther, notice the metre. Reg- 
ularly the Phaleucian verse is composed of four trochees and 
one dactyl; so is the Sapphic, but in another order. The 
Phaleucian employs the dactyl in the second place ; the Sap- 
phic employs it in the third. But the Latin poets are fonder 
of a spondee in the first. Catullus frequently admits an iambic ; 

as in 

" Meas esse aliquid putare nugas. 
Tua nunc opera meae puellse," etc. 

Carmen IV. " Dedicatio PhaseU." This is a senarian, and 
composed of pure iambics. Nothing can surpass its elegance. 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 34I 

The following bears a near resemblance to it in the beginning, 
and may be offered as a kind of paraphrase : — 

" The vessel which lies here at last 
Had once stout ribs and topping mast, 
And vvhate'er wind there might prevail, 
Was ready for a row or sail. 
It now lies idle on its side, 
Forgetful o'er the waves to glide. 
And yet there have been days of yore 
"When pretty maids their posies bore 
To crown its prow, its deck to trim, 
And freight it with a world of whim. 
A thousand stories it could tell, 
But it loves secrecy too well. 
Come closer, my sweet girl ! pray do ! 
There may be still one left for you." 

Carmen V. " Ad Lesbiam." It is difficult to vary our ex- 
pression of delight at reading the first three poems vs^hich Les- 
bia and her sparrow have occasioned. This is the last of them 
that is fervid and tender. There is love in many of the others, 
but impure and turbid, and the object of it soon presents to 
us an aspect far less attractive. 

Carmen VI. "Ad Flavium." Whoever thinks it worth his 
while to peruse this poem, must enclose in a parenthesis the 
words " Nequicquam taciturn." Taciturn is here a participle : 
and the words mean, " It is in vain that you try to keep it a 
secret." 

Carmen VII. " Again to Lesbia." Here, as in all his hen- 
decasyllabics, not only are the single verses full of harmony, a 
merit to which other writers of them not unfrequently have at- 
tained, but the sentences leave the ear no "aching void," as 
theirs do. 

Carmen VIIL "Ad seipsum." This is the first of the 
scazons. The metre in a long poem would perhaps be more 
tedious than any. Catullus, with admirable judgment, has 
never exceeded the quantity of twenty-one verses in it. No 
poet, uttering his own sentiments on his own condition in a 
soliloquy, has evinced such power in the expression of passion, 
in its sudden throbs and changes, as Catullus has done here. 

In Doering's edition we read, verse 14, — 

" At tu dolebis, cum rogaberis nulla, 
Scelesta ! nocte." 



342 ' THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

No such pause is anywhere else in the poet. In Scaliger the 
verses are, — 

" At tu dolebis, quum rogaberis nulla. 
Scelesta rere, quas tibi manet vita." 

The punctuation in most foreign books, however, and in all 
English, is too frequent ; so that we have snatches and broken 
bars of tune, but seldom tune entire. Scaliger's reading is 
probably the true one, by removing the comma after 7-ere, — 

" Scelesta rere quae tibi manet vita ! 
{Consider what must be the remainder of your life ! ) " 

Now, certainly there were many words obliterated in the 
only copy of our author. It was found in a cellar, and under a 
wine-barrel. Thus the second word in the second line appears 
to have left no traces behind it ; otherwise, words so different 
as nocte and rere could never have been mistaken. Since 
the place is open to conjecture, therefore, and since every 
expression round about it is energetic, we might suggest an- 
other reading : — 

" At tu dolebis quum rogaberis nulla, 
Scelesta! nullo. Quae tibi manet vita? 
Quis nunc te adibit ? quoi videberis bella ? 
Quem nunc amabis ? quojus esse diceris? 
Quern basiabis ? quoi labella mordebis ? 
At tu, Catulle ! destinatus obdura." 

Which we will venture to translate : — 

" But you shall grieve while none complains, — 
None, Lesbia ! None. Think what remains 
For one so fickle, so untrue ! 
Henceforth, O wretched Lesbia ! who 
Shall call you dear, — shall call you his ? 
"Whom shall you love, or who shall kiss 
Those lips again ? Catullus ! thou 
Be firm, be ever firm as now." 

The angry taunt very naturally precedes the impatient ex- 
postulation. The repetition of nullo is surely not unexpected. 
Nullus was often used absolutely in the best times of Latinity. 
"Ab nullo repetere," and '■^ nullo aut paucissimis prsesentibus," 
by Sallust. "Qui scire possum? nullus plus," by Plautus. 
" Vivis his incolumibusque, liber esse nullus potest," by Cicero. 

It may as well be noticed here that basiare, basium, basiatio. 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 343 

are words unused by Virgil, Propertius, Horace, Ovid, or Ti- 
buUus. They belonged to Cisalpine Gaul more especially, al- 
though the root has now extended through all Italy, and has 
quite supplanted osaduni and its descendants. Bellus has done 
the same in regard to fortnosiis, which has lost its footing in 
Italy, although it retains it in Spain, slightly shaken, in hermoso. 
The saviari and savium of Plautus, Terence, Cicero, and Ca- 
tullus are never found in the poets of the Augustan age, to the 
best of our recollection, excepting once in Propertius. 

Carmen IX. " Ad Verannium." Nothing was ever livelier 
or more cordial than the welcome here given to Verannius on 
his return from Spain. It is comprised in eleven verses. Our 
poets on such an occasion would have spread out a larger 
table-cloth with a less exquisite dessert upon it. 

Carmen X. " De Varri Scorto." Instead of expatiating on 
this, which contains in truth some rather coarse expressions, 
but is witty and characteristical, we will subjoin a paraphrase, 
with a few defalcations : — 

Varrus would take me t' other day 

To see a little girl he knew, 
Pretty and witty in her way, 

With impudence enough for two. 

Scarce are we seated, ere she chatters 

(As pretty girls are wont to do) 
About all persons, places, matters — 

" And pray, what has been done for you ? " 

" Bithynia, lady," I replied, 

" Is a fine province for a pretor, 
For none (I promise you) beside, 

And least of all am I her debtor." 

" Sorry for that ! " said she. " However 

You have brought with you, I dare say, 
Some litter bearers : none so clever 

In any other part as they. 

" Bithynia is the very place 

For all that 's steady, tall, and straight ; 
It is the nature of the race. 

Could not you lend me six or eight ? " 

" Why, six or eight of them or so," 

Said I, determined to be grand ; 
" My fortune is not quite so low 

But these are still at my command." 



344 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

" You '11 send them ? " " Willingly 1 " I told her, 

Altho' I had not here or there 
One who could carry on his shoulder 

The leg of an old broken chair. 

" Catullus ! what a charming hap is 

Our meeting in this sort of way I 
I would be carried to Serapis 

To-morrow." "Stay, fair lady, stay I 

" You overvalue my intention. 

Yes, there are eight — there may be nine : 
I merely had forgot to mention 

That they are Cinna's, and not mine." 

Catullus has added two verses which we have not translated, 
because they injure the poem, — 

" Sed tu insulsa male et molesta vivis 
Per quam non licet esse negligentem." 

This, if said at all, ought not to be said to the lady. The re- 
flection might be (but without any benefit to the poetry) made 
in the poet's own person. Among the ancients however, when 
we find the events of common life and ordinary people turned 
into verse, — as here for instance, and in the " Praxinoe " of 
Theocritus, and in another of his where a young person has 
part of her attire torn, — we never are bored with prolixity and 
platitude, in which a dull moral is our best relief at the close of 
a dull story. 

Carmen XI. " Ad Furium et Aurelium." Furius and Aure- 
lius were probably the comrades of Catullus in Bithynia. He 
appears to have retained his friendship for them not extremely 
long. Here he intrusts them with a message for Lesbia, which 
they were fools if they delivered, although there is abundant 
reason for believing that their modesty would never have re- 
strained them. He may well call these 

" Non bona dicta." 

But there are worse in reserve for themselves, on turning over 
the very next page. The last verses in the third strophe are 
printed, — 

" Gallic um Rhenum horribilesf?^^ ulti- 
mosque Britannos." 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 345 

The enclitic que should be changed to ad, since it could not 
support itself without the intervention of an aspirate, — 

*' Gallicum Rhenum horribileis ad ulti- 
mosque Britannos," — 

and the verse " Csesaris visens," etc., placed in a parenthesis. 
When the poet wrote these Sapphics, his dislike of Caesar had 
not begun. Perhaps it was occasioned long afterward, by some 
inattention of the great commander to the Valerian family on 
his last return from Transalpine Gaul. Here he writes, — 

" Csesaris visens monimenta magni." 

Very different from the contemptuous and scurril language with 
which he addressed him latterly. 

Carmen XII. "Ad Asinium PoUionem." Asinius PoUio 
and his brother were striplings when this poem was written. 
The worst but most admired of Virgil's Eclogues was composed 
to celebrate the birth of Polho's son, in his consulate. In this 
Eclogue, and in this alone, his versification fails him utterly. 
The lines afford one another no support. For instance, this 
sequence, — 

" Ultima Cum^i venit jam carminis setas. 
Magnus ab integro sseclorum nascitur ordo, 
Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna." 

Toss them in a bag and throw them out, and they will fall as 
rightly in one place as another. Any one of them may come 
first, any one of them may come last, any one of them may 
come intermediately ; better that any one should never come 
at all. Throughout the remainder of the Eclogue, the ampulla 
of Virgil is puffier than the worst of Statins or Lucan. 

In the poem before us it seems that Asinius, for whose infant 
the universe was to change its aspect, for whom grapes were to 
hang upon thorns, for whom the hardest oaks were to exude 
honey, for whom the rams in the meadows were to dye their 
own fleeces with murex and saffron, — this Asinius picked 
CatuUus's pocket of his handkerchief. Catullus tells him he is 
a blockhead if he is ignorant that there is no wit in such a 
trick, which he says is a very dirty one, and appeals to the 
brother, calling him a smart and clever lad. He declares he 



346 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

does not mind so much the value of the handkerchief, as 
because it was a present sent to him out of Spain by his friends 
Fabullus and Verannius, who united (it seems) their fiscal 
forces in the investment. This is among the lighter effusions 
of the volume, and worth as httle as Virgil's Eclogue, though 
exempt from such grave faults. 

• Carmen XIII. "Ad FabuUum." A pleasant invitation to 
dinner, as in verse 8, — 

" Plenus sacculus est aranearum." 

It is curious that Doering, so sedulous in collecting scraps of 
similitudes, never thought of this in Plautus, where the idea and 
expression too are so alike, — 

" Ita inaniis sunt oppletae atque araneis." 
Let us offer a paraphrase, — 

" With me, Fabullus, you shall dine, 
And gaudily, I promise you, 
If you will only bring the wine, 
The dinner, and some beauty too. 

" With all your frolic, all your fun, 
I have some little of my own — 
And nothing else : the spiders run 

Throughout my purse, now theirs alone." 

He goes on rather too far, and promises his invited guest so 
sweet a perfume that he shall pray the gods to become all nose ; 
that is, we may presume, if no one should intervene to correct 
or divert in part a wish so engrossing. 

Carmen XIV. "Ad Calvum Licinium." The poet seems 
in general to have been very inconstant in his friendships, but 
there is no evidence that he ever was estranged from Calvus. 
This is the more remarkable, as Calvus was a poet, the only 
poet among his friends, and wrote in the same style. At the 
close of the poem here addressed to him, properly ending at 
the twenty-third verse, we find four others appended. They 
have nothing at all to do with it, they are a worthless fragment ; 
and it is a pity that the wine- cask, which rotted off and dislo- 
cated so many pieces, did not leak on and obliterate this, and 
many similar, particularly the next two. We should then, it 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 347 

may be argued, have known less of the author's character. So 
much the better. Unless by knowing the evil that is in any 
one we can benefit him or ourselves or society, it is desirable 
not to know it at all. 

Carmen XVII. "Ad Coloniara." Here are a few beautiful 
verses in a very indifferent piece of poetry. We shall tran- 
scribe them, partly for their beauty, and partly to remove an 
obscurity : — 

" Quoi quum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella, 
Et puella tenellulo delicatior hasdo, 
Asservanda nigerrimis diligentius uvis ; 
Ludere banc sinit ut lubet, nee pili facit uni, 
Nee se sublevat ex sua parte ; sed velut alnus 
In fossa Liguri jacet suppernata securi, 
Tantundem omnia sentiens quam si nulla sit usquam. 
Talis iste meus stupor nil videt, nihil audit, 
Ipse qui sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit." 

This is in the spirit of Aristophanes, and we may fancy we 
hear his voice in the cantilena. Asservanda should be printed 
adservanda ; and suppernata, siibpernata. Liguri is doubtful. 
Ligur/j" is the genitive case of Ligur. The Ligurians may in 
ancient times, as in modern, have exercised their industry out 
of their own country, and the poorer of them may have been 
hewers of wood ; then securis Ligur'vs, would be the right in- 
terpretation. But there are few countries in which there are 
fewer ditches, or fewer alders, than in Liguria ; we who have 
travelled through the country in all directions do not remem- 
ber to have seen a single one of either. It would be going 
farther, but going where both might be found readily, if we 
went to the Liger, and read " In fossa LigenV." 

Carmina XVIII., XIX., XX. ''Ad Priapum." The first of 
these three is a Dedication to the God of Gardens. In the 
two following the poet speaks in his own person. The first 
contains only four lines. The second is descriptive, and ter- 
minates with pleasantry, — 

" O pueri I malas abstinete rapinas ! 
Vicinus prope dives est, negligensque Priapus ; 
Inde sumite ; semita haec deinde vos feret ipsa." 

In the third are these exquisite verses : — 

" Mihi corolla picta vere ponitur, 
Mihi rubens arista sole fervido, 



348 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

Mihi virente dulcis uva pampino, 
Mihique glauca duro oliva frigore. 
Meis capella delicata pascuis 
In urbein adulta lacte portat ubera, 
Meisque pinguis agnus ex ovilibus 
Gravem domum remittit aere dexteram, 
Teneraque matre mugiente vaccula 
Deum profundit ante templa sanguinem." 

We will attempt to translate them : — 

" In spring the many-colored crown, 
The sheaves in summer, ruddy-brown, 
The autumn's twisting tendrils green, 
With nectar-gushing grapes between, — 
Some pink, some purple, some bright gold, — 
Then shrivelled olive, blue with cold. 
Are all for me : for me the goat 
Comes with her milk from hills remote. 
And fatted lamb, and calf pursued 
By moaning mother, sheds her blood." 

The third verse, as printed in this edition and most others, 
is contrary to the laws of metre in the pure iambic, — 

" Agellulum hunc, sinistra, tiite quam vides." 

And tute is inelegant and useless. Scaliger proposed "sinist^ra 
ante quem vides." He was near the mark, but missed it ; for 
Catullus would never have written " sinist^ra." It is very 
probable that he wrote the verse — 

" Agellulum hunc sinistra, inante quem vides. 
On the left hand, just before you." 

Inante and exante were applied to time rather than place, but 
not exclusively. 

Carmen XXII. "Ad Varrum." This may be advantage- 
ously contracted in a paraphrase, — 

" Suffenus, whom so well you know. 
My Varrus, as a wit and beau 
Of smart address and smirking smile, 
Will write you verses by the mile. 
You cannot meet with daintier fare 
Than titlepage and binding are ; 
But when you once begin to read 
You find it sorry stuff indeed. 
And you are ready to cry out 
Upon this beau, ' Ah! what a lout ! ' 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 349 

No man on earth so proud as he 
Of his own precious poetry, 
Or knows such perfect bliss as when 
He takes in hand that nibbled pen. 

Have we not all some faults like these ? 
Are we not all Suffenuses ? 
In others the defect we find, 
But cannot see our sack behind." 

Carmen XXV. " Ad Thallum." It is hardly safe to steal 
a laugh here, and yet it is difficult to refrain from it. Some of 
the verses must be transposed. Those which are printed — 

" Thalle ! turbida rapacior procella. 
Cum de via mulier aves ostendit oscitantes, 
Remitte pallium mihi, meum quod involaste — 

ought to be printed — 

" Thalle ! turbida rapacior procella, 
Remitte pallium mihi, meum, quod involaste 
Quiim ' deviffj ' mulier aves ostendit oscitantes." 

This shows that Thallus had purloined CatuUus's cloak while 
he was looking at a nest of owls ; for such are device aves, and so 
they are called by Ovid. It is doubtful whether the right read- 
ing is oscitantes, " opening their beaks," or oscinentes, which is 
applied to birds that do not sing, — by Valerius Maximus to 
crows, by Livy to birds of omen. In the present case we may 
believe them to be birds of augury, and inauspicious, as the 
word always signifies, and as was manifest in the disaster of 
Catullus and his cloak. In the eleventh verse there is a false 
quantity, — 

" Inusta turpiter tibi flagella consmbillent." 

Was there not such a, word as contribulo ? 

Carmen XXIX. " Ad Csesarem." This is the poem by which 
the author, as Cicero remarks, affixes an eternal stigma on the 
name of Csesar, but which the most powerful and the best tem- 
pered man in the world heard without any expression of anger 
or concern. The punctuation appears ill-placed in the sixteenth 
and seventeenth verses, — 

" Quid est ? ait sinistra liberalitas : 
Parum expatravit. An parura helluatus est ?" 



350 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

We would write them, — 

" Quid est, aiii ? Sinistra liberalitas 
Parum expatravit ? " etc. 

" Where is the harm, do you ask ? What ! has this left- 
handed liberality of his," etc. 

Carmen XXX. "Ad Alphenum." A poem of sobs and 
sighs, of complaint, reproach, tenderness, sad reflection, and 
pure poetry. 

Carmen XXXI. " Ad Sirmionem Peninsulam." Never was 
a return to home expressed so sensitively and beautifiilly as 
here. In the thirteenth line we find — 

" Gaudete vosque Lydias lacus undje." 

The " Lydian waves of the lake " would be an odd expression. 
Although, according to a groundless and somewhat absurd 
tradition, — 

" Gens Lyda jugis insedit Etruscis, — " 

yet no gens Lyda could ever have penetrated to these Alpine 
regions. One of the Etrurian nations did penetrate so far, 
whether by conquest or expulsion is uncertain. But Catullus 
here calls upon Sirmio to rejoice in his return, and he invites 
the waves of the lake to laugh. Whoever has seen this beauti- 
fiil expanse of water, under its bright sun and gentle breezes, 
will understand the poet's expression ; he will have seen the 
waves laugh and dance. Catullus, no doubt, wrote 

" Gaudete vosque ' Iz/dias ' lacus undae I 
Ye revellers and dancers of the lake ! " 

If there was the word ludius, which we know there was, there 
must also have been ludia. 

Carmen XXXIV. "Ad Dianam." A hymn, of the purest 
simplicity. 

Carmen XXXV. " Csecilium invitat." It appears that Cse- 
cilius, Kke Catullus, had written a poem on Cybele. Catullus 
invites him to leave Como for Verona, — 

" Quamvis Candida millies puella 
Euntem revocet, manusque coUo 
Ambas injiciens roget morari." 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 35 1 

Which may be rendered, — 

" Although so passing fair a maid 
Call twenty times, be not delayed ; 
Nay, do not be delayed although 
Both arms around your neck she throw." 

For it appears she was desperately in love with him from the 
time he had written the poem. Catullus says it is written so 
beautifully that he can pardon the excess of her passion. 

Carmen XXXIX. " In Egnatium." This is the second 
time he has ridiculed Egnatius, — a Celtiberian, and overfond 
of displaying his teeth by continually laughing. Part of the 
poem is destitute of merit, and indelicate ; the other part may 
be thus translated, or paraphrased rather : — 

Egnatius has fine teeth, and those 

Eternally Egnatius shows. 

Some criminal is being tried 

For murder, and they open wide ; 

A widow wails her o~nly son, — 

Widow and him they open on. 

'T is a disease, I 'm very sure, 

And wish 't were such as you could cure, 

My good Egnatius ! for what's half 

So silly as a silly laugh ? " 

We cannot agree with Doering that we should read, in 
verse ii, — 

" Kxit porcus Umber aut obesus Etruscus." 

First, because the porcus and obesus convey the same meaning 
without any distinction ; and secondly, because the distinction 
is necessary both for the poet and the fact. The Etrurians 
were a most luxurious people ; the Umbrians, a pastoral and 
industrious one. He wishes to exhibit a contrast between these 
two nations, as he has done in the preceding verse between 
what is urbane and what is Sabine. Therefore he wrote, — 

" Aut parous Umber aut obesus Hetruscus." 

Carmen XL. "Ad Ravidum." The sixth verse is printed 
improperly — 

" Quid vis ? qua lubet esse notus optaj ? " 
Read — 

" Quid vis ? qua lubet esse notus ? opta." 



352 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

" Opta," — make your option. 

Carmen XLII, "Ad Quandam." We should not notice 
this " ad quandam " were it not to correct a mistake of 
Doering. " Ridentem canis ore Gallicani,^^ — his note on 
this expression is, " Epitheton ornans, pro quovis cane venatico 
cujus rictus est latior." No, the " canis gallicus " is the grey- 
hound, whose rictus is indeed much latior than that of other 
dogs ; and Catullus always uses words the most characteristic 
and expressive. 

Carmen XLV. " De Acme et Septimio." Perhaps this poem 
has been admired above its merit ; but there is one exquisitely 
fine passage in it, and replete with that harmony which, as we 
have already had occasion to remark, Catullus alone has given 
to the Phaleucian metre, — 

" At Acme leviter caput reflectens, 

Et dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos 

Isto purpureo ore suaviata, 
' Sic,' inquit, ' mea vita Septimille ! 

Huic uno domino usque serviamus.' " 

Carmen XLVI. " De Adventu Veris." He leaves Phrygia 
in the beginning of spring, and is about to visit the celebrated 
cities of maritime Asia. What beauty and vigor of expression 
is there in — 

" Jam mens prsetrepidans avet vagari, 
Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt." 

There is also much tenderness at the close in the short valedic- 
tion to his companions, who set out together with him in the 
expedition, and will return (whenever they do return) by vari- 
ous roads into their native country. 

Carmen L. " Ad Licinium." On the day preceding the 
composition of this poem, he and Licinius had agreed to write 
together in dififerent metres, and to give verse for verse. Ca- 
tullus was so delighted with the performances of Licinius that 
he could never rest, he tells us, until he had signified it by this 
graceful little poem. 

Carmen LI. This is a translation from Sappho's ode, and 
perhaps is the first that had ever been attempted into Latin, 
although there is another which precedes it in the volume. 
Nothing can surpass the graces of this, and it leaves us no re- 
gret but that we have not more translations by him of Sappho's 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 353 

poetry. He has copied less from the Greek than any Latin 
poet had done before Tibullus. 

The adonic at the close of the second strophe is lost. Many 
critics have attempted to substitute one. In the edition before 
us we find — 

" Simul te 
Lesbia ! adspexi, nihil est super m! 
Vocis in ore." 

A worse cannot be devised. 

" Quod loquar amens " 

would be better. The ode ends, and always ended, with 

" Lumina nocte." 

Carmen LIII. " De Quodam et Calvo." Calvus, as well 
as Cicero, spoke publicly against Vatinius. It will be requisite 
to write out the five verses of which this piece of Catullus is 
composed, — 

" Risi nescio quern modo in coron^ 
Qui quum mirifice Vatiniana 
Meus crimina Calvus explicasset 
Admirans ait haec manusque tollens, 
Di magni ! salaputium disertum t " 

Doering's note on the words is this : " Vox nova, ridicula et, 
ut videbatur, plebeia (^salaputiuin) . CatuUum ad hos versus 
scribendos impuht." He goes on to put into prose what Ca- 
tullus had told us in verse, and adds, " Catullus a risu sibi tem- 
perare non potuit." Good Herr Doering does not see whereas 
the fun. It lies in the fact of Calvus being a very little man, 
and in the clown hearing a very little man so eloquent, and 
crying out, " Heavens above ! what a clever little cocky / " 
The word should not be written " salapu/ium," but " salapu- 
j-ium." The termination in um is a signification of endear- 
ment, as deliciolum for delicice, — and correspondently the ov 
in Greek ; TracStov, for instance, and TraiSaptov. It cannot be 
salepygium, as some critics have proposed, because the third 
syllable in this word (supposing there were any such) would, 
according to its Greek origin, be short. Perhaps the best 
reading may be " sal/pusium," from sal and pusius. Rustic 
terms are unlikely to be compounded with accuracy. In old 
Latin the word, or words, would be sali (for salis) pusium. 

23 



354 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

But / is equivalent to s ; and the modem Italian, which is 
founded on the most ancient Latin, has putto. 
Carmen LIV. " Ad Csesarem." . 

" Fuffitio seni recocio." 

On this is the note " Homo recoctus jam dicitur qui in rebus 
agendis diu multumque agitatus, versatus, exercitatus, et quasi 
percoctus, rerum- naturam penitus perspexit," etc. 

Surely these qualities are not such as Catullus or Caesar 
ought to be displeased with. But " senex recoctus " means an 
old dandy boiled up into youth again in Medea's caldron. In 
this poem Catullus turns into ridicule no other than personal 
peculiarities and defects, — first in Otho, then in Libo, lastly 
in Fuffitius. 

Carmen LVII. "In Mamurram et Caesarem." If Caesar 
had hired a poet to write such wretched verses as these and 
swear them to Catullus, he could never in any other way have 
more injured his credit as a poet. The " Duo Caesaris Anti- 
Catones," which are remembered as having been so bulky, 
could never have fallen on Cato so fatally as this Anti-Catullus 
on Catullus. 

Carimen LXI. " De Nuptiis Juliae et Manlii." Never was 
there, and never will there be probably, a nuptial song of 
equal beauty. But in verse 129 there is a 'false quantity as 
now printed, and quite unnoticed by the editor, — 

" Dese;-tum domini audiens." 

The metre does not well admit a spondee -^ for the second 
foot ; it should be a trochee, and this is obtained by the true 
reading, " Des/tum." 

Carmen LXII. Another nuptial song, and properly an epi- 
thalamium in heroic verse, and very masterly. It seems in- 
credible, however, that the last lines, beginning, — 
"At tu ne pugna," — 

were written by Catullus, They are trivial ; and besides, the 
young singing men never have sung so long together in the 
former parts assigned to them. The longest of these consists 
of nine verses, with the choral 

" Hymen, O Hymenaee ! " 
1 Yet here, in two hundred and thirty-five verses nine begin with it. 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 355 

and the last would contain eleven with it, even after rejecting 
these seven which intervene, and which, if admitted, would 
double the usual quantity. We would throw them out because 
there is no room for them, and because they are trash. 

Carmen LXIII. This has ever been, and ever will be, the 
admiration of all who can distinguish the grades of poetry. 
The thirty-ninth verse is printed, — 

" Piger his labentej languore oculos sopor operit." 

The metre will not allow it. We must read, " labant^ lan- 
guore," although the construction may be somewhat less obvi- 
ous. The words are in the ablative absolute, — "Sleep covers 
their eyes, a languor dropping over them." 

Verse 64 should be printed "gymnasj," not "gymnasii." 
The seventy-fifth and seventy-sixth lines must be reversed, and 
instead of 



read 



" Geminas 'Z'eorum ' ad aur^s nova nuncia referens 
Ibi juncta juga resolvens Cybele leonibus 
Lsevumque pecoris hostem stimulans," 



" Ibi juncta juga resolvens Cybele leonibus, 
Geminas ' ^orum ' ad zxxreis nova nuncia referens," etc. 



Carmen LXIV. "Nuptise Pelei et Thetidis." Among many 
excellencies of the highest order, there are several faults and 
inconsistencies in this heroic poem. In verse 15, — 

" Illaque haudque alia," etc., — 

it is incredible that Catullus should have written " haud^?^^." 
In verse 3 7 we read, — 

" Pharsaliam coeunt, Pharsalia rura frequentant." 

No objection can be raised against this reading. "Pharsa- 
liam " is a trisyllable. The i sometimes coalesces with another 
vowel, as a and do. In Virgil we find, — 

" Stell/o et lucifugis. 
Aured composuit sponda. 
Una eademque via. 
Uno ^<7demque igni. 
Perque ^rea scuta." 



356 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

Verses 58 and the following are out of their order. They 
stand thus : — 

" Rura colit nemo : mollescunt colla juvencis : 
Non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris ; 
Non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus : 
Non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram : 
Squalida desertis robigo infertur aratris." 

The proper and natural series is, together with the right 
punctuation, — 

" Rura colit nemo : mollescunt colla juvencis, 
Non glebam prono convellit vomere taurus ; 
Squalida desertis robigo infertur aratris. 
Non humilis curvis purgatur vinea rastris, 
Non falx attenuat frondatorum arboris umbram," — 

because here the first, the second, and the third refer to the 
same labor, that of ploughing ; the fourth and fifth to the same 
also, that of cultivating the two kinds of vineyard. In one 
kind the grapes are cut low and fastened on poles with bands 
of withy, and raked between ; in the other they are trained 
against trees. Formerly the tree preferred was the elm ; at 
present it is the maple, particularly in Tuscany. The branches 
are lopped and thinned when the vines are pruned, to let in sun 
and air. By ignorance of such customs in agriculture, many 
things in the Classics are mistaken. Few people know the 
meaning of the words in Horace, — 

" Cum diiplice ficu." 

M'ost fancy it must be the purple fig and the yellow ; but there 
is also a green one. The ItaHans, to dry their figs the more 
expeditiously, cut them open and expose them on the pave- 
ment before their cottages. They then stick two together, and 
this is duplex ficus. 

We now come to graver faults (and faults certainly the 
poet's) than a mere transposition of verses. In the palace 
of Peleus there is a piece of tapestry which takes up the best 
part of the poem, 

" Hsec vestis priscis hominum variata figuris " 

exhibits the story of Theseus and Ariadne. Their adventures 
could not have happened five-and-twenty years before these 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 35/ 

nuptials. Of the Argo, which carried Peleus when Thetis fell 
in love with him, the poet says, as others do, — 

_ '•' Ilia rudem cursu prima imbuit Amphitriten." 

But in the progress of sixty lines we find that vessels had been 
saiHng to Crete every year, with the Athenian youths devoted 
to the Minotaur. Castor and Pollux sailed in the Argo with 
Peleus ; and Helen, we know, was their sister : she was about 
the same age as Achilles, and Theseus had run away with her 
before Paris had. But equal inconsistencies are to be detected 
in the .^neid, a poem extolled, century after century, for pro- 
priety and exactness. An anachronism quite as strange as this 
of Catullus is in the verses on Acragas, Agrigentum, — 

" Arduus inde Acragas ostentat maxima longe 
Mcenia, magnanimum quonda7n generator equorum. 

Whether the city itself was built in the age of ^neas is not the 
question ; but certainly the breed of horses was introduced by 
the Carthaginians, and improved by Hiero and Gelon. The 
breed of the island is small, as it is in all mountainous coun- 
tries, where the horses are never found adapted to chariots any 
more than chariots are adapted to surfaces so uneven. 

In verse 83, for " Funera Cecropise," etc., we must read 
" Pubis Cecropiae." 

In verse 119, " Quae misera," etc., is supposititious. 

In verse 1 78 we read, — 

" Idomeneos-ne petam montes ? at gurgite lato," etc 

Idomeneus was unborn in the earUer days of Theseus. Prob- 
ably the verses were written, — 

" Idam ideone petam ? Montes (ah gurgite vasto 
Discernens!) ponti truculentum dividit zequor." 

In verse 191, nothing was ever grander or more awful than 
the adjuration of Ariadne to the Eumenides, — 

" Quare facta virum multantes vindice peni 
Eumenides ! quarum anguineo redimita capillo 
Frons expirantes prcEporiat pectoris iras, 
Hue, hue adventate ! " 

Verse 199, Doering explains, — 

" Vos nolite pati nostrum vanescere luctum," — 



358 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

" bnpunitum manere." What, — her grief ? Does she pray 
that her grief may not remain tmpunished ? No, she implores 
that the prayers that arise from it may not be in vain. 
In verse 2 1 2 we read, — 

" Namque ferunt olim [classi cum moeiiia Divze] 
Linquentem, natum, ventis concrederet ^Egeus, 
Talia complexum juveni mandata dedisse." 

The mould of the barrel has been doing sad mischief there. 
We must read — 

" Namque ferunt, natum ventis quum crederat ^geus." 

In verse 250 we have, — 

" At parte ex alia. 

This scene is the subject of a noble picture by Titian, now in 
the British Gallery. It has also been deeply studied by Nico- 
las Poussin. But there is a beauty which no painting can 
attain in — 

" Plangebant alii proceris tympana palmis, 
Aut tereti tenues tinnitus mre ciebant." 

Soon follows that exquisite description of morning on the sea- 
side, already transcribed, and placed by the side of Milton's 
personification. 

In verse 340 we read, — 

" Nascetur vobis expers terroris Achilles, 
Hostibus hand te7-go sed forti pectore notiis. 
Qui perssepe vagi victor certamine cursus 
Flammea prsevertet celeris vestigia cervi." 

It is impossible that Catullus, or any poet whatever, can have 
written the second of these. Some stupid critic must have 
done it, who fancied that the " expers terroris " was not clearly 
and sufficiently proven by urging the car over the field of 
battle, and had little or nothing to do in outstripping the stag. 

Verse 329. Rarely have the Fates sung so sweetly as in 
this verse to Peleus, — 

" Adveniet tibi jam portans optata maritis 
Hesperus, adveniet fausto cum sidere conjux, 
Quae tibi flexanimo mentem perfundat amore 
Languidulosque paret tecum conjungere somnos, 
Lsevia substernens robusto brachia collo." 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 359 

Carmen LXV. " Ad Hortalum." He makes his excuse to 
Hortalus for delaying a compliance with his wishes for some 
verses. This delay he tells him was occasioned by the death 
of his brother, to whom he was most affectionately attached, 
and whose loss he laments in several of his poems. In this he 
breaks forth into a very pathetic appeal to him, — 

" AUoquar? audiero numquam tua facta loquentem ? 
Nunquam ego te, vita frater amabilior, 
Adspiciam posthac ! At certe semper amabo, 
Semper maesta tua carmina morte canam." 

The two following hnes are surely supposititious. Thinking 
with such intense anguish of his brother's death, he could find 
no room for so frigid a conceit as that about the Daulian bird 
and Itylus. This is almost as much out of place, though not 
so bad in itself, as the distich which heads the epistle of 
" Dido to ^neas " in Ovid, — 

" Sic, ubi Fata vocant, udis abjectus in herbis 
Ad vada Mseandri concinit albus olor." 

As if the Fates were busied in " calling white swans ! " Ovid 
never composed any such trash. The epistle in fact begins 
with a verse (21) of consummate beauty, tenderness, and 
gravity, — 

" Quod miserse oblitae molli sub veste locatum, 
Dum adventu matris prosilit, excutitur." 

These require another punctuation, — 

" Quod miserse (oblitje molli sub veste locatum)." 

The Germans, to whom we owe so much in every branch of 
learning, are not always fortunate in their punctuation ; and 
perhaps never was anything so subversive of harmony as that 
which Heyne has given us in a passage of Tibullus, — 

" Blanditiis vult esse locum Venus ipsa — " 

Who could ever doubt this fact, — that even Venus herself will 
admit of blandishments? But Tibullus laid down no such 
truism. Heyne writes it thus, and proceeds, — 

" querelis 
Supplicibus, miseris fletibus, ilia favet." 



360 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

The tender and harmonious poet wrote not " Blandit/is " but 
" Bland/tis, — 

" Blanditis vult esse locum Venus ipsa querelis ; 
Supplicibus, miseris, flentibus, ilia favet." 

Here the " blanditiae " are quite out of the question ; but the 
" blanditffi querelas " are complaints softly expressed and coax- 
ingly preferred. 

To return to Catullus. The following couplet is — 

" Atque illud prono prasceps agitur decursu ; 
Huic nianat tristi conscius ore rubor." 

Manat can hardly be applicable to rubor. We would prefer — 

" Huic inanet in tristi conscius ore rubor," — 

the opposite to " agitur decursu." 

They whose ears have been accustomed to the Ovidian ele- 
giac verse, and have been taught at school that every pentame- 
ter should close with a dissyllable, will be apt to find those of 
Catullus harsh and negligent. But let them only read over, 
twice or thrice, the first twelve verses of this poem, and their 
ear will be cured of its infirmity. By degrees they may be led 
to doubt whether the worst of all Ovid's conceits is not his de- 
termination to give every alternate verse this syllabic uniformity. 

Carmen LXVL " De Coma Berenices." This is imitated 
from a poem of CalUmachus, now lost, — perhaps an early ex- 
ercise of our poet, corrected afterward, but insufficiently. The 
sixth verse, however, is exquisite in its cadence, — 

" Ut Triviam furtim sub Latmia saxa relegans 
Dulcis amor gyro devocat aerio." 

Verse 27 reads, — 

" Anne bonum oblita es facinus, quo regium adepta es 
Conjugium, quod non fortior ausit alis.'" 

Berenice is said to have displayed great courage in battle. To 
render the second verse intelligible, we must admit " alis " for 
alius, as alid is used for altud in Lucretius. Moreover, we 
must give " fortior " the expression of strength, not of courage, 
— 2.% forte throughout Italy at the present time expresses never 
courage, always strength. The sense of the passage then is, 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 361 

'< Have you forgotten the great action by which you won your 
husband, — an action which one much stronger than yourself 
would not have attempted?" For it would be nonsense to 
say, "You have performed a brave action which a braver ^ex- 
son would not have dared." In the sense of Catullus are those 
passages of Sallust and Virgil, — 

" Neque a ' fortissimis ' infirniissi7no generi resist! posse. 
' Forti ' fidis equo." 

Verse 65 reads, — 

" Virginis, et saevi contingens namque Leonis Lumina." 

Namque may be the true reading. The editor has adduced 
two examples from Plautus to show the probability of it, but 
fails, — 

" Quando h£ec innata est nam tibi." ^ 

" Quid tibi ex filio nam jegre est." 2 

He seems unaware that " nam," in the first, is only a part of 
quid-nam, the quid being separated ; quando-nam, the same 
for ecqiiando {ede quando) " tell me when," quianam, etc. ; 
but namque is not in the like condition, and in this place it is 
awkward. The nam added to the above words is always an 
interrogative. 

Carmen LXVII. "Ad Januam," etc. In verse 31 we 
have, — 

" Atqui non solum se dicit cognitum habere 
Brixia, Cycnaeae supposita speculse, 
Flaviis quam 77iolli percurrit fliunine Mela, 
Brixia Veronse mater amata meae." 

Why should the sensible Marchese Scipione Maffei have taken 
it into his head that the last couplet is spurious ? What a beau- 
tiful verse is that in italics ! 

Carmen LXVIII. " Ad Manlium." A rambhng poem quite 
unworthy of the author. The verses from the beginning of the 
twenty-sixth to the close of the thirtieth appertain to some 
other piece, and break the context. Doering has gi^^n a 
strange interpretation to — 

" Veronse turpe Catullo," etc. 

1 Pers. ii. 5, 13. ^ Bacch. v. 1, 20. 



362 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

The trae meaning is much more obvious and much less deU- 
cate. In the sixty-third we must read "At" for "Ac;" this 
helps the continuity. After the seventy-third we must omit, as 
belonging to another place, all until we come to verse 143. 
Here we catch the thread again. The intermediate lines be- 
long to two other poems, both perhaps addressed to Manlius, 
— one relating to the death of the poet's brother, the other 
on a very different subject : we mean the fragment just now 
indicated — 

" Quare quod scribis, Veronae turpe Catullo," etc. 

Verse 145 reads, — 

" Sed furtiva dedit miri munuscula nocte, 
Ipsius ex ipso demta viri gremio." 

The verses are thus worded and punctuated in Doering's 
edition and others, but improperly. " Mird nocte " is non- 
sense. We must read the lines thus : — 

" Sed furtiva dedit niiri munuscula nocte 
Ipsius ex ipso," etc. 
Or thus, — 

" Sed furtiva dedit media munuscula nocte 
Ipsius ex ipso demta viri gremio." 

Verse 147, which reads, — 

" Quare illud satis est, si nobis is datur unus, 
Quem lapide ilia diem candidiore notat," — 

Doering thus interprets : — 

" Quare jam illud mihi satis est, si ilia vel umim diem, quem mecum 
vixit, ut diem faustum felicemque albo lapide insigniat." 

That the verses have no such meaning is evident from the 
preceding, — 

" Quse tamen etsi uno non est contenta Catullo 
Rara verecundse furta feremus herse." 

This aboHshes the idea of one single day contenting him, con- 
tented as he professes himself to be with little aberrations and 
infidelities. Scaliger has it, — 

" Quare illud satis est, si nobis za^ datur unis; 
Quod lapide il!a dies candidiore notat." 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 363 

And it appears to us that Scaliger has given the first line cor- 
rectly ; but not the punctuation. We should prefer, — 

" Quare illud satis est, si nobis id datur unis 
Qu^i lapide ilia diem candidiore notrt." 

Verses 69 and 70 read, — 

" Trito fulgentem in limine plantam 
Innisa arguta constitit in so/ed." 

The slipper could not be arguta while she was standing in it. 
Scaliger reads " constitz/// solea." The one is not sense; the 
other is neither sense nor Latin, unless the construction is con- 
stituit plantam, and then all the other words are in disarray. 
The meaning is, " She placed her foot against the door, and, 
without speakifig, rapped it with her sounding slipper." Then 
the words would be " arguta conticuit solea." 
In verse 78 we have, — 

" Nil mihi tam valde placeat, Rhamnusia virgo. 
Quod \.exa.txt invitis suscipiatur heris." 

In Scaliger it is, — 

" Quam temere," etc. 

The true reading is neither, but — 

" Qu^m ut temere." 

Such elisions are found in this very poem and the preceding, — 

" Ne amplius a misero," — 
and — 

" Qui ipse sui gnati." 

Carmen LXXI. " Ad Virronem." Doering thinks, as others 
have done, that the poem is against Virro. On the contrary, it 
is a facetious consolation to him on the punishment of his rival, 

" Mirifice est a te nactus utrumque malum " 

means only " for his offence against you." We have a little 
more to add on this in CXV. 

Carmen LXXV. "Ad Lesbiam." Here are eight verses, 
the rhythm of which plunges from the ear into the heart. Our 
attempt to render them in English is feeble and vain, — 

1 "Quo " for "quod." 



364 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

" None could ever say that she, 
Lesbia, was so loved by me. 
Never all the world around 
Faith so true as mine was found : 
If no longer it endures 
(Would it did !) the fault is yours. 
I can never think again 
Well of you : I try in vain. 
But — be false — do what you will — 
Lesbia, I must love you still." 

Carmen LXXVI. "Ad seipsum." They whose ears retain 
only the sound of the hexameters and pentameters they recited 
and wrote at school, are very unlikely to be greatly pleased 
with the versification of this poem. Yet perhaps one of equal 
earnestness and energy was never written in elegiac metre. 
Sentences must be read at once, and not merely distichs ; then 
a fresh harmony will spring up exuberantly in every part of it, 
into which many discordant verses will sink and lose themselves, 
to produce a part of the effect. It is, however, difficult to re- 
strain a smile at such expressions as these from such a man, — 

" Si vitam puriter egi, 
O Dii ! reddite mi hoc pro pietate mea 1 " 

Carmen LXXXV. " De Amore suo." 

" Odi et amo. Qiiare id faciam, fortasse requiris: 
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior." 

The words in italics are flat and prosaic ; the thought is beauti- 
ful, and similar to that expressed in LXXV. 

" I love and hate. Ah ! never ask why so ! 
I hate and love — and that is all I know. 
I see 'tis folly, but I feel 'tis woe." 

Carmen XCII. " De Lesbia." The fourth verse is printed — 

" Quo signo ? quasi non totidem mox deprecor illi 
Assidue" 

" Mox " and " assidue " cannot stand together. Jacobs has 
given a good emendation, — 

" Quasi non totidem mala deprecor illi," etc. 

Carmen XCIII. "In Csesarem." Nothing can be imagined 
more contemptuous than the indifference he here affects toward 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 365 

a name destined in all after ages to be the principal jewel in 
the highest crowns ; and thinking of Csesar's genius, it is diffi- 
cult to see without derision the greatest of those who assume 
it. Catullus must have often seen, and we have reason to be- 
lieve he personally knew, the conqueror of Gaul when he wrote 
this epigram, — 

" I care not, Caesar, what you are, 
Nor know if you be brown or fair." 

Carmen XCV. " De Smyrna Cinnse Poetse." There is 
nothing of this poem, in which Cinna's "■ Smyrna " is extolled, 
worth notice, excepting the last line ; and that indeed not for 
what we read in it, but for what we have lost, — 

" Parva mei mihi sunt cordi monumenta . . ." 

The word " monz^menta " is spelled improperly ; it is " mon/- 
menta." The last word in the verse is wanting ; yet we have 
seen quoted, and prefixed to volumes of poetry, — 

" Parva mei mihi sunt cordi monumenta laboris." 

But Catullus is not speaking of himself, he is speaking of 
Cinna ; and the proper word comes spontaneously, " sodalis." 
Carmen XCIX. " Ad Juventium." 

" Multis diluta labella 
Guttis abstersisti omnibus articults." 

How few will this verse please ! but how greatly those few ! 

Carmen CI. " Inferise ad Fratris Tumulum," In these 
verses there is a sorrowful but a quiet solemnity, which we 
rarely find in poets on similar occasions. The grave and firm 
voice which has uttered the third, breaks down in the 
fourth, — 

" Multas per gentes et multa per asquora vectus 
Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias, 
Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis 
Et mutiint nequidquam alloquerer cinerem." 

Unusual as is the cadence, the caesura, who would wish it other 
than it is? If there were authority for it, we would read, in 
the sixth, instead of — 

" Heu miser indigne frater ademte mihi " — 



366 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

" Heu nimis ; " because just above we have, — 
" Adveni has miseras, frater, ad inferias." 

Carmen CX. " Ad Aufilenam." Doering says, " Utram 
poetae an scribarum socordm tribuenda sit, qua ultimi hujus car- 
minis versus laborant, obscuritas, pro suo quisque statuat arbi- 
trio. Tolli quidera potest hsec obscuritas, sed emendandi genere 
liderrimo." We are not quite so sure of that ; we are only- 
sure that we find no obscurity at all in them. The word 
factum is understood, and would be inelegant if it could have 
found for itself a place in the verse. 

Carmen CXV. It is requisite to transcribe the verses here 
to show that Doering is mistaken in two places ; he was at 
LXXI. in one only, — 

" Prata arva, ingentes sylvas saltusque paludesque 
Usque ad Hyperboreos et mare ad Oceanum. 
Omnia magna haec sunt, tamen ipse est 7naxiiims tiltor" 

He quotes LXXI., forgetting that that poem is addressed to 
Virro, and this to Mamurra, under his old nickname : Mamurra, 
whatever else he might be, was no viaximus ultor here. The 
context will show what the word should be. Mamurra, by his 
own account, is possessor of meadow ground and arable ground, 
of woods, forests, and mai'shes, from the Hyperboreans to the 
Atlantic. " These are great things," says Catullus, " but he 
himself is great beyond them all,''' — '' ipse est maximus, ultra ; " 
sc. *' Hyperboreas et Oceanum." 

In how different a style, how artificially, with what infinite 
fuss and fury, has Horace addressed Virgil on the death of 
Quintilius Varus ! Melpomene is called from a distance, and 
several more persons equally shadowy are brought forward ; 
and then Virgil is honestly told that if he could sing and play 
more blandly than the Thracian Orpheus, he never could reani- 
mate an empty image which Mercury had drawn off among his 
" black flock." 

In selecting a poet for examination, it is usual either to extol 
him to the skies, or to tear him to pieces and trample on him. 
Editors in general do the former, — critics on editors, more 
usually the latter. But one poet is not to be raised by casting 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 367 

another under him. Catullus is made no richer by an attempt 
to transfer to him what belongs to Horace, nor Horace by what 
belongs to Catullus. Catullus has greatly more than he ; but 
he also has much, — and let him keep it. We are not at lib- 
erty to indulge in forwardness and caprice, snatching a deco- 
ration from one and tossing it over to another. We will now 
sum up what we have collected from the mass of materials 
which has been brought before us, laying down some general 
rules and observations. 

There are four things requisite to constitute might, majesty, 
and dominion in a poet : these are creativeness, constructive- 
ness, the sublime, the pathetic. A poet of the first order must 
have formed, or taken to himself and modified, some great 
subject. He must be creative and constructive. Creativeness 
may work upon old materials : a new world may spring from 
an old one. Shakspeare found Hamlet and Ophelia ; he found 
Othello and Desdemona, — nevertheless he, the only universal 
poet, carried this and all the other qualifications far beyond 
the reach of competitors. He was creative and constructive, 
he was sublime and pathetic, and he has also in his humanity 
condescended to the famiUar and the comic. There is nothing 
less pleasant than the smile of Milton ; but at one time Momus, 
at another the Graces, hang upon the neck of Shakspeare. 
Poets whose subjects do not restrict them, and whose ordinary 
gait displays no indication of either greave or buskin, if they 
want the facetious and humorous, and are not creative nor sub- 
lime nor pathetic, must be ranked by sound judges in the sec- 
ondary order and not among the foremost even there. 

Cowper and Byron and Southey, with much and deep ten- 
derness, are richly humorous. Wordsworth, grave, elevated, 
observant, and philosophical, is equi-distant from humor and 
from passion. Always contemplative, never creative, he delights 
the sedentary and tranquillizes the excited. No tear ever fell, 
no smile ever glanced on his pages. With him you are beyond 
the danger of any turbulent emotion at terror, or valor, or mag- 
nanimity, or generosity. Nothing is there about him like 
Burns's " Scots wha ha'e wi' Wallace bled, " or Campbell's 
" Battles of Copenhagen and Hohenlinden," or those exquisite 
works which in Hemans rise up hke golden spires among 
broader but lower structures, — "Ivan" and "Casablanca." 



368 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

Byron, often impressive and powerful, never reaches the heroic 
and the pathetic of these two poems ; and he wants the fresh- 
ness and healthiness we admire in Burns. But an indomitable 
fire of poetry, the more vivid for the gloom about it, bursts 
through the crusts and crevices of an unsound and hollow mind. 
He never chatters with chilliness, nor falls overstrained into 
languor ; nor do metaphysics ever muddy his impetuous and 
precipitate stream. It spreads its ravages in some places, but 
it is limpid and sparkling everywhere. If no story is well told 
by him, no character well delineated, — if all resemble one an- 
other by their beards and Turkish dresses, there is however the 
first and the second and the third requisite of eloquence, 
whether in prose or poetry, — vigor. But no large poem of 
our days is so animated, or so truly of the heroic cast as " Mar- 
mion." Southey's "Roderick" has less nerve and animation; 
but what other living poet has attempted, or shown the ability, 
to erect a structure so symmetrical and so stately? It is not 
enough to heap description on description, to cast reflection 
over reflection ; there must be development of character in the 
development of story; there must be action, there must be 
passion ; the end and the means must alike be great. 

The poet whom we mentioned last is more studious of clas- 
sical models than the others, especially in his ." Inscriptions." 
Interest is always excited by him, enthusiasm not always. If 
his elegant prose and harmonious verse are insufficient to ex- 
cite it, turn to his virtues, to his manliness in defence of truth, 
to the ardor and constancy of his friendships, to his disinter- 
estedness, to his generosity, to his rejection of title and office, 
and consequently of wealth and influence. He has labored to 
raise up merit in whatever path of literature he found it ; and 
poetry in particular has never had so intelligent, so impartial, 
and so merciful a judge. Alas ! it is the will of God to de- 
prive him of those faculties which he exercised with such dis- 
cretion, such meekness, and such humanity ! 

We digress, — not too far, but too long ; we must return to 
the ancients, and more especially to the author whose volume 
lies open before us. 

There is little of the creative, little of the constructive, in 
him ; that is, he has conceived no new varieties of character, 
he has built up n6 edifice in the intellectual world, — but he 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 369 

always is shrewd and brilliant ; he often is pathetic ; and he 
sometimes is sublime. Without the sublime, we have said be- 
fore, there can be no poet of the first order ; but the pathetic 
may exist in the secondary, for tears are more easily drawn 
forth than souls are raised : so easily are they on some occa- 
sions, that the poetical power needs scarcely to be brought 
into action ; while on others the pathetic is the very summit of 
sublimity. We have an example of it in the Ariadne of Catul- 
lus ; we have another in the Priam of Homer. All the heroes 
and gods, debating and fighting, vanish before the father of 
Hector in the tent of Achilles, and before the storm of con- 
flicting passions his sorrows and prayers excite. But neither 
in the spirited and energetic Catullus, nor in the masculine and 
scornful and stern Lucretius, — no, nor in Homer, — is there 
anything so impassioned, and therefore so subhme, as the last 
hour of Dido in the ^neid. Admirably as two Greek poets 
have represented the tenderness, the anguish, the terrific wrath 
and vengeance of Medea, all the works they ever wrote contain 
not the poetry which Virgil has condensed into about a hundred 
verses, — omitting, as we must, those which drop like icicles 
from the rigid lips of ^neas ; and also the similes which, here 
as everywhere, sadly interfere with passion. In this place Virgil 
fought his battle of Actium, which left him poetical supremacy 
in the Roman world, whatever mutinies and conspiracies may 
have arisen against him in Germany or elsewhere. 

The Ariadne of Catullus has greatly the advantage over the 
Medea of Apollonius, for what man is much interested by 
such a termagant? We have no sympathies with a woman 
whose potency is superhuman. In general, it may be appre- 
hended, we like women little the better for excelling us even 
moderately in our own acquirements and capacities ; but what 
energy springs from her weaknesses ! what poetry is the fruit 
of her passions, once perhaps in a thousand years bursting 
forth with imperishable splendor on its golden bough ! If 
there are fine things in the Argonautics of Apollonius, there 
are finer still in those of Catullus. In relation to Virgil, he 
stands as Correggio in relation to Raphael, — a richer colorist, 
a less accurate draftsman, less capable of executing grand de- 
signs, more exquisite in the working out of smaller. Virgil is 
depreciated by the arrogance of self-sufficient poets, nurtured 

24 



370 THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 

on coarse fare, and dizzy with home-brewed flattery. Others, 
who have studied more attentively the ancient models, are 
abler to show his relative station, and readier to venerate his 
powers. Although we find him incapable of contriving and 
more incapable of executing so magnificent a work as the Iliad, 
yet there are places in his compared with v\'hich the grandest 
in that grand poem lose much of their elevation. Never was 
there such a whirlwind of passions as Virgil raised on those 
African shores, amid those rising citadels and departing sails. 
When the vigorous verses of Lucretius are extolled, no true 
poet, no sane critic, will assert that the seven or eight exam- 
ples of the best are equivalent to this one : even in force of 
expression, here he falls short of Virgil. 

When we drink a large draught of refreshing beverage, it is 
only a small portion that affects the palate. In reading the 
best poetry, moved and excited as we may be, we can take in 
no more than a part of it ; passages of equal beauty are unable 
to raise enthusiasm. Let a work in poetry or prose indicating 
the highest power of genius be discoursed on, probably no two 
persons in a large company will recite the same portion as 
having struck them the most forcibly ; but when several pas- 
sages are pointed out and read emphatically, each listener will 
to a certain extent doubt a little his own judgment in this one 
particular, and hate you heartily for shaking it. Poets ought 
never to be vexed, discomposed, or disappointed, when the 
better is overlooked and the inferior is commended : much 
may be assigned to the observer's point of vision being more 
on a level with the object. And this reflection also will con- 
sole the artist, when really bad ones are called more simple and 
natural, while in fact they are only more ordinary and common. 
In a palace we must look to the elevation and proportions, 
whereas a low grotto may assume any form and almost any de- 
formity. Rudeness is here no blemish ; a shell reversed is no 
false ornament ; moss and fern may be stuck with the root out- 
ward ; a crystal may sparkle at the top or at the bottom ; dry 
sticks and fragmentary petrifactions find every\vhere their proper 
place, and loose soil and plashy water show just what Nature 
delights in. Ladies and gentlemen who at first were about to 
turn back, take one another by the hand, duck their heads, 
.enter it together, and exclaim, "What a charming grotto ! " 



THE POEMS OF CATULLUS. 371 

In poetry, as in architecture, the Rustic Order is proper 
only for the lower story. 

They who have listened, patiently and supinely, to the ca- 
tarrhal songsters of goose-grazed commons, will be loath and 
ill-fitted to mount up with Catullus to the highest steeps in the 
forests of Ida, and will shudder at the music of the Corybantes 
in the temple of the Great Mother of the Gods. 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

Scarcely on any author, of whatever age or country, has 
there so much been written, spoken, and thought, by both 
sexes, as on the subject of this criticism, — Petrarca. 

The compilation by Mr. Campbell is chiefly drawn together 
from the French. It contains no criticism on the poetry of his 
author, beyond a hasty remark or two in places which least 
require it. He might have read Sismondi and Ginguen^ more 
profitably. The author of the " Introduction to the Literature 
of Europe " had already done so ; but neither has he thrown 
any fresh light on the character or the writings of Petrarca, or, 
in addition to what had already been performed by those two 
judicious men, furnished us with a remark in any way worth 
notice. The readers of Italian, if they are suspicious, may 
even suspect that Mr. Campbell knows not very much of the 
language. Among the many apparent causes for this suspicion, 
we shall notice only two. Instead of " Friuli," he writes the 
French word " Frioul ; " and instead of the " Marca di Ancona," 
the "Marshes." In Italian, a marsh is paliide or padule ; 
whereas marca is the origin of marchese, — the one a co7ifine ; 
the other a defender of a confine, or lord of such a territory. 

Whoever is desirous of knowing all about Petrarca, will 
consult Muratori and De Sade ; whoever has been waiting for 
a compendious and sound judgment on his works at large, will 
listen attentively to Ginguene ; whoever can be gratified by a 
rapid glance at his works and character, will be directed by the 
clear-sighted follower of truth, Sismondi ; and whoever reads 
only English, and is contented to fare on a small portion of 
recocted criticism in a long excursion, may be accommodated 
by Mrs. Dobson, Mr. Hallam, and Mr. Campbell. 

It may seem fastidious and affected to write, as I have done, 
his Italian name in preference to his English one ; but I think 
it better to call him as he called himself, as Laura called him, 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 373 

as he was called by Colonna and Rienzi and Baccaccio, and in 
short by all Italy, for I pretend to no vernacular familiarity 
with a person of his distinction, and should almost be as ready 
to abbreviate Francesco into Frank, as Petrarca into Petrarch. 
Besides, the one appellation is euphonious, the other quite the 
reverse. 

We EngHshmen take strange liberties with Itahan names. 
Perhaps the human voice can articulate no sweeter series of 
sounds than the syllables which constitute Livorno ; certainly 
the same remark is inapplicable to Leghorn. However, we are- 
not liable to censure for this depravation ; it originated with 
the Genoese, the ancient masters of the town, whose language 
is extremely barbarous, not unlike the Provencal of the Trou- 
badours. With them the letter g, pronounced hard, as it al- 
ways was among the Greeks and Romans, is common for v : 
thus lagoro for lavoro. 

I hope to be pardoned my short excursion, which was only 
made to bring my fellow-laborers home from afield. At last 
we are beginning to call people and things by their right 
names. We pay a little more respect to Cicero than we did 
formerly, calling him no longer by the appellation of Tully ; we 
never say Laurence, or Lai de Medici, but Lorenzo. On the 
same principle, I beg permission to say Petrarca and Boc- 
caccio, instead of Petrarch and Boccace. These errors were 
fallen into by following French translations ; and we stopped 
and recovered our footing only when we came to Tite-live and 
Aulugelle ; it was then indeed high time to rest and wipe our 
foreheads. Yet we cannot shake off the illusion that Horace 
was one of us at school, and we continue the friendly nick- 
name, although with a whimsical inconsistency we continue to 
talk of the Horatii and Curiatii. Ovid, our earlier , friend, 
sticks by us still. The ear informs us that Virgil and Pindar 
and Homer and Hesiod suffer no worse by defalcation than 
fruit-trees do ; the sounds indeed are more euphonious than 
what fell from the native tongue. The great historians, the 
great orators, and the great tragedians of Greece have escaped 
unmutilated ; and among the Romans it has been the good 
fortune, at least so far as we are concerned, of Paterculus, 
Quintus Curtius, Tacitus, Catullus, Propertius, and TibuUus to 
remain intact by the hand of onomaclasts. Spellings, whether 



374 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

of names or things, should never be meddled with, save where 
the ignorant have superseded the learned, or where analogy 
has been overlooked by these. The courtiers of Charles II. 
chalked and charcoaled the orthography of Milton. It was 
thought a scandal to have been educated in England, and a 
worse to write as a republican had written. We were the sub- 
jects of the French king, and we borrowed at a ruinous rate 
from French authors, but not from the best. Eloquence was 
extinct, a gulf of ignominy divided us from the genius of Italy, 
the great master of the triple world was undiscovered by us, 
and the loves of Petrarca were too pure and elevated for the 
sojourners of Versailles. 

Francesco Petrarca, if far from the greatest, yet certainly the 
most celebrated of poets, was born in the night between the 
nineteenth and twentieth day of July, 1304. His father's 
name was Petracco ; his mother's, Eletta Canigiani. Petracco 
left Florence under the same sentence of banishment as his 
friend Dante Ahghieri, and joined with him and the other 
exiles of the Bianchi army in the unsuccessful attack on that 
city the very night when, on his return to Arezzo, he found a 
son born to him : it was his first. To this son, afterward so 
illustrious, was given the name of Francesco di Petracco. In 
after life the sound had something in it which he thought 
ignoble ; and he converted it into Petrarca. The wise and 
virtuous Gravina, patron of one who has written much good 
poetry, and less of bad than Petrarca, changed in like manner 
the name of Trapasso to Metastasio. I cannot agree with him 
that the sound of the Hellenized name is more harmonious, — 
the reduplication of the syllable tas is painful ; but I do agree 
with Petrarca, whose adopted form has only one fault, which is, 
that there is no meaning in it. 

When he was seven months old he was taken by his mother 
from Arezzo to Incisa, in the Val-d'Arno, where the life so 
lately given was nearly lost. The infant was dropped into the 
river, which is always rapid in that part of its course, and was 
then swollen by rain into a torrent. At Incisa he remained 
with her seven years. The father had retired to Pisa; and 
now his wife and Francesco, and another son born after, 
named Gherardo, joined him there. In a short time however 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 375 

he took them to Avignon, where he hoped for employment 
under Pope Clement V. In that crowded city lodgings and 
provisions were so dear that he soon found it requisite to send 
his wife and children to the small episcopal town of Carpen- 
tras, where he often went to visit them. In this place Fran- 
cesco met Convenole, who had taught him his letters, and who 
now undertook to teach him what he knew of rhetoric and 
logic. He had attained his tenth year when the father took 
him with a party of friends to the fountain of Vaucluse. Even 
at that early age his enthusiasm was excited by the beauty and 
solitude of the scene. The waters then flowed freely ; habita- 
tions there were none but the most rustic, and indeed one 
only near the rivulet. Such was then Vaucluse ; and such it 
remained all his lifetime, and long after. The tender heart is 
often moulded by localities. Perhaps the purity and singleness 
of Petrarca's, his communion with it on one only altar, his 
exclusion of all images but one, result from this early visit to 
the gushing springs, the eddying torrents, the insurmountable 
rocks, the profound and inviolate solitudes of Vaucluse. 

The time was now come when his father saw the necessity 
of beginning to educate him for a profession ; and he thought 
the canon law was likely to be the most advantageous. Con- 
sequently he was sent to Montpelier, the nearest university, 
where he resided four years, — not engaged, as he ought to 
have been, among the jurisconsults, but among the Classics. 
Information of this perversity soon reached Petracco, who has- 
tened to the place, found the noxious books, and threw them 
into the fire ; but, affected by the lamentations of his son, he 
recovered the Cicero and the Virgil, and restored them to him, 
partially consumed. At the age of eighteen he was sent from 
Montpelier to Bologna, where he found Cino da Pistoja, to 
whom he applied himself in good earnest, not indeed for his 
knowledge as a jurisconsult, in which he had acquired the 
highest reputation, but for his celebrity as a poet. After two 
more years he lost his father ; and the guardians, it is said, were 
unfaithful to their trust. Probably there was httle for them to 
administer. He now returned to Avignon, where, after the 
decease of Clement V., John XXII. occupied the popedom. 
Here his Latin poetry soon raised him into notice^ for nobody 
in Avignon wrote so good ; but happily, both for himself and 



3/6 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

many thousand sensitive hearts in every age and nation, he 
soon desired his verses to be received and understood by one 
to whom the Latin was unknown. 

" Benedetto sia il giorno, e '1 mese, e I'anno ! 

Blessed be the day, and month, and year 1 " 

Laura, daughter of Audibert de Noves, was married to Hugh 
de Sade, — persons of distinction. She was younger by three 
years than Petrarca. They met first on Good Friday, in the 
convent-church of Saint Claire, at six in the morning. That 
hour she inspired such a passion, by her beauty and her 
modesty, as years only tended to strengthen, and death to 
sanctify. The incense which burned in the breast of Petrarca 
before his Laura might have purified, one would have thought, 
even the court of Avignon ; and never was love so ardent 
breathed into ear so chaste. The man who excelled all others 
in beauty of person, in dignity of demeanor, in genius, in ten- 
derness, in devotion, was perhaps the only one who failed in 
attaining the object of his desires. But cold as Laura was in 
temperament, rigid as she was in her sense of duty, she never 
was insensible to the merits of her lover. A light of distant 
hope often shone upon him and tempted him onward, through 
surge after surge, over the depths of passion. -Laura loved ad- 
miration, as the most retired and most diffident of women do ; 
and the admiration of Petrarca drew after it the admiration 
of the world. She also, what not all women do, looked for- 
ward to the glory that awaited her, when those courtiers and 
those crowds and that city should be no more, and when of all 
women the Madonna alone should be so glorified on earth. 

Perhaps it is well for those who delight in poetry that Laura 
was inflexible and obdurate ; for the sweetest song ceases when 
the feathers have lined the nest. Incredible as it may seem, 
Petrarca was capable of quitting her : he was capable of be- 
lieving that absence could moderate, or perhaps extinguish, his 
passion. Generally the lover who can think so has almost 
succeeded ; but Petrarca had contracted the habit of writing 
poetry, — and now writing it on Laura, and Laura only, he 
brought the past and the future into a focus on his breast. All 
magical powers, it is said, are dangerous to the possessor : none 
is more dangerous than the magic of the poet, who can call be- 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 37/ 

fore him at will the object of his wishes ; but her countenance 
and her words remain her own, and are beyond his influence. 

It is wonderful how extremely few, even of Italian scholars 
and natives of Italy, have read his letters or his poetry entirely 
through. I am not speaking of his Latin ; for it would indeed 
be a greater marvel if the most enterprising industry succeeded 
there. The thunderbolt of war — " Scipiades fulmen belli " — 
has always left a barren place behind. No poet ever was for- 
tunate in the description of his exploits ; and the least fortunate 
of the number is Petrarca. Probably the whole of the poem 
contains no sentence or image worth remembering. I say 
probably ; for whosoever has hit upon what he thought the 
best of it has hit only upon v/hat is worthless, or else upon 
what belongs to another. The few lines quoted and applauded 
by Mr. Campbell are taken partly from Virgil's ^neid, and 
partly from Ovid's Metamorphoses. I cannot well believe 
that any man living has read beyond five hundred lines of 
"Africa;" I myself, in sundry expeditions, have penetrated 
about thus far into its immeasurable sea of sand. But the 
wonder is that neither the poetry nor the letters of Petrarca 
seem to have been, even in his own country, read thoroughly 
and attentively; for surely his commentators ought to have 
made themselves masters of these, before they agitated the 
question, — some whether Laura really existed, and others 
whether she was flexible to the ardor of her lover. Speaking 
of his friends, Socrates and Laelius, of whose first meeting with 
him I shall presently make mention, he says, — 

" Con costor colsi '1 glorioso ramo 
Onde forse anzi tempo ornai le tempie. 
In memoria di quella ch' i' tant' amo : 
Ma pur di lei che il cuor di pensier m' empie 
Non potei coglier mai ratno ne foglie ; 
Si fur' le sue radici acerbe ed empie." 

I cannot render these verses much worse than they actu- 
ally are, with their " tempo " and " tempie," and their " radici 
empie ; " so let me venture to offer a translation : — 

" They saw me win the glorious bough 
That shades my temples even now, 
Who never bough nor leaf could take 
From that severe one, for whose sake 
So many sighs and tears arose — 
Unbending root of bitter woes." 



3/8 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

There is a canzone to the same purport, to be noticed in 
its place ; and several of his letters could also be adduced in 
evidence. We may believe that although he had resolved to 
depart from Avignon for a season, he felt his love increasing 
at every line he wrote. Such thoughts and images cannot be 
turned over in the mind and leave it perfectly in composure. 
Yet perhaps when he had completed the most impassioned 
sonnet, the surges of his love may have subsided under the oil 
he had poured out on his vanity ; for love, if it is a weakness, 
was not the only weakness of Petrarca, and when he had per- 
formed what he knew was pleasing in the eyes of Laura, he 
looked abroad for the applause of all around. 

Giacomo Colonna, who had been at the university of Bologna 
with him, had come to Avignon soon after. It was with Co- 
lonna he usually spent his time ; both had alike enjoyed the 
pleasures of the city, until the day when Francesco met Laura. 
To Giacomo was now given the bishopric of Lombes, in reward 
of a memorable and admirable exploit, among the bravest that 
ever has been performed in the sight of Rome herself. When 
Lewis of Bavaria went thither to depose John XVIII. , Giacomo 
Colonna, attended by four men in masks, read publicly in the 
Piazza di San Marcello the bull of that emperor's excommuni- 
cation and dethronement, and challenged to single combat any 
adversary. None appearing, he rode onward to the stronghold 
of his family at Palestrina, the ancient Preneste. His reward 
was this little bishopric. When Petrarca found him at Lombes, 
in the house of the bishop he found also two persons of worth, 
who became the most intimate of his friends, — the one a 
Roman, Lello by name, which name the poet Latinized to 
Lselius ; the other from the borders of the Rhine, whose ap- 
pellation was probably less tractable, and whom he called Soc- 
rates. Toward the close of autumn the whole party returned 
to Avignon. 

In the bosom of Petrarca love burned again more ardently 
than ever. It is censured as the worst of conceits in him that 
he played so often on the name of Laura, and many have sus- 
pected that there could be little passion in so much allusion. 
A purer taste might indeed have corrected in the poetry the 
outpourings of tenderness on the name ; but surely there is a 
true and a pardonable pleasure in cherishing the very sound of 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 379 

what we love. If it belongs to the heart, as it does, it belongs 
to poetry, and is not easily to be cast aside. The shrub recall- 
ing the idea of Laura was planted by his hand : often that he 
might nurture it was the pen laid by ; the leaves were often 
shaken by his sighs, and not unfrequently did they sparkle with 
his tears. He felt the comfort of devotion as he bent before 
the image of her name. But he now saw little of her, and was 
never at her house ; it was only in sm.all parties, chiefly of la- 
dies, that they met. She excelled them all in grace of person 
and in elegance of attire. Probably her dress was not the 
more indifferent to her on her thinking whom she was about to 
meet ; yet she maintained the same reserve, — the nourisher of 
love, but not of hope. 

Restless, forever resdess, again went Petrarca from Avignon. 
He hoped he should excite a little regret at his departure and 
a desire to see him again soon, if not expressed to him before 
he left the city, yet conveyed by letters or reports. He pro- 
ceeded to Paris, thence to Cologne, and was absent eight 
months. On his return, the bishop, whom he expected to 
meet, was neither at Avignon nor at Lombes. His courage and 
conduct were required at Rome, to keep down the rivals of his 
family, the Orsini. Disappointed in his visit and hopeless in 
his passion, the traveller now retired to Vaucluse ; and here he 
poured in solitude from his innermost heart incessant strains of 
love and melancholy. 

At Paris he had met with Dionigi de' Ruperti, an Augustine 
monk, born at Borgo San Sepolcro near Florence, and esteemed 
as one of the most learned, eloquent, philosophical, and reU- 
gious men in France. To him Petrarca wrote earnestly for 
counsel ; but before the answer came he had seen Laura. A 
fever was raging in the city, and her life was in danger. Bene- 
dict XII., to whom he addressed the least inelegant of his 
Latin poems (an exhortation to transfer the Roman See to 
Rome) , conferred on him, now in the thirtieth year of his age, 
a canonry at Lombes. But the bishop was absent from the 
diocese, and again at Rome. Thither hastened Petrarca, and 
was received at Capraniccia, a castle of the Colonnas, not only 
by his diocesan, but likewise by Stefano, senator of Rome, to 
which city they both conducted him. His stay here was short ; 
he returned to Avignon, but inflamed with unquenchable love, 



380 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

and seeking to refresh his bosom with early memories, he re- 
tired to Vaucluse. Here he purchased a poor cottage and a 
small meadow ; hither he transferred his books, and hither 
also that image which he could nowhere leave behind. Sum- 
mer, autumn, winter, he spent among these solitudes ; a fisher- 
man was his only attendant, but occasionally a few intimate 
friends came from Avignon to visit him. The bishop of Cav- 
aillon, Philippe de Cabassoles, in whose diocese was Vaucluse, 
and who had a villa not far off, here formed with him a lasting 
friendship, and was worthy of it. During these months the 
poet wrote the three canzoni on the eyes of Laura, which some 
have called the "Three Graces," but which he himself called 
the " Three Sisters." The Italians, the best-tempered and the 
most polite of nations, look rather for beauties than faults, and 
imagine them more easily. A brilliant thought blinds them to 
improprieties, and they are incapable of resisting a strong ex- 
pression. Enthusiastic criticism is common in Italy ; ingenious 
is not deficient, correct is yet to come. 

About this time Simone Memmi of Siena, whom some with- 
out any reason whatsoever have called a disciple of Giotto, 
was invited by the Pope to Avignon, where he painted an apart- 
ment in the pontifical- palace, just then completed. Petrarca 
has celebrated him, not only in two sonnets, but also in his 
letters, in which he says, " Duos ego novi pictores egregios, — 
Joctium Florentinum civem, cujus inter modernos fama ingens 
est, et Simonem Senensem." 

Had so great an artist been the scholar of Giotto, it would 
have added to the reputation of even this illustrious man, a 
triumvir with Ghiberti and Michelangelo. These, although 
indeed not flourishing together, may be considered as the first 
triumvirate in the republic of the arts ; Raphael, Correggio, and 
Titian the second. There is no resemblance to Giotto in the 
manner of Simone, nor does Ghiberti mention him as the dis- 
ciple of the Florentine. No man knew better than Ghiberti 
how distinct are the Sanese and the Florentine schools. Si- 
mone Memmi, the first of the modems who gave roundness 
and beauty to the female face, neglected not the graceful air 
of Laura. Frequently did he repeat her modest features in the 
principal figure of his sacred compositions ; and Petrarca was 
alternately tortured and consoled by the possession of her por- 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 38 I 

trait from the hand of Memmi. It was painted in the year 

1339, so that she was thirty- two years old ; but whether at the 
desire of her lover, or guided by his own discretion, or that in 
reality she retained the charms of youth after bearing eight or 
nine children, she is represented youthful and almost girlish 
whenever he introduces her. 

With her picture now before him, Petrarca thought he could 
reduce in number and duration his visits to Avignon, and might 
undertake a work sufficient to fix his attention and occupy his 
retirement. He began to compose in Latin a history of Rome, 
from its foundation to the subversion of Jerusalem. But almost 
at the commencement the exploits of Scipio Africanus seized 
upon his enthusiastic imagination, and determined him to 
abandon history for poetry. The second Punic War was the 
subject he chose for an epic. Deficient as the work is in 
all the requisites of poetry, his friends applauded it beyond 
measure. And indeed no small measure of commendation is 
due to it ; for here he had restored in some degree the plan 
and tone of antiquity. But to such a pitch was his vanity ex- 
alted, that he aspired to higher honors than Virgil had received 
under the favor of Augustus, and was ambitious of being 
crowned in the capitol. His powerful patrons removed every 
obstacle ; and the senator of Rome invited him by letter to his 
coronation. A few hours afterward, on the 23d of August, 

1340, another of the same purport was delivered to him from 
the University of Paris. The good king Robert of Naples had 
been zealous in obtaining for him the honor he solicited ; and 
to Naples he hastened, ere he proceeded to Rome. 

It was in later days that kings began to avoid the conversa- 
tion and familiarity of learned men. Robert received Fran- 
cesco as became them both ; and on his departure from the 
court of Naples presented to him the gorgeous robe in which, 
four days afterward, he was crowned in the capitol. At the 
close of his life he lamented the glory he had thus attained, 
and repined at the malice it drew down on him. Even in the 
hour of triumph he was exposed to a specimen of the kind. 
Most of those among the ancient Romans to whom in their 
triumphal honors the laurel crown was decreed, were exposed 
to invectives and reproaches in their ascent ; fescennine verses, 
rude and limping, interspersed with saucy trochaics, were gen- 



382 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

erally their unpalatable fare. But Petrarca, the elect of a 
senator and a pope, was doomed to worse treatment. Not on 
his advance, but on his return, an old woman emptied on his 
laurelled head one of those mysterious vases which are usually 
in administration at the solemn hour of night. Charity would 
induce us to hope that her venerable age was actuated by no 
malignity, but there were strong surmises to the contrary ; nor 
can I adduce in her defence that she had any poetical vein, by 
which I might account for this extraordinary act of inconti- 
nence. Partaking, as was thought by the physicians, of the 
old woman's nature, the contents of the vase were so acrimo- 
nious as to occasion baldness ; her caldron, instead of restor- 
ing youth, drew down old age, or fixed immovably its odious 
signal. A projectile scarcely more fatal, in a day also of 
triumph, was hurled by a similar enemy on the head of Pyrrhus. 
The laurel decreed in full senate to Julius Csesar, although it 
might conceal the calamity of baldness, never could have pre- 
vented it ; nor is it probable that either his skill or his fortune 
could have warded off efficaciously what descended from such 
a quarter. The Italians, who carry more good humor about 
them than any other people, are likely to have borne this catas- 
trophe of their poet with equanimity, if not hilarity. Perhaps 
even the gentle Laura, when she heard of it, averted the smile 
she could not quite suppress. 

I will not discuss the question, how great or how little was 
the glory of this coronation, — a glory which Homer and 
Dante, which Shakspeare and Milton, never sought, and never 
would have attained. Merit has rarely risen of itself, but a 
pebble or a twig is often quite sufficient for it to spring from 
to the highest ascent. There is usually some baseness before 
there is any elevation. After all, no man can be made greater 
by another, although he may be made more conspicuous by 
title, dress, position, and acclamation. The powerful can only 
be ushers to the truly great ; and in the execution of this office 
they themselves approach to greatness. But Petrarca stood far 
above all the other poets of his age ; and incompetent as were 
his judges, it is much to their praise that they awarded due 
honor to the purifier both of language and of morals. With 
these, indeed, to solicit the wife of another may seem inconsis- 
tent ; but such was always the custom of the Tuscan race, and 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 383 

not always with the same chastity as was enforced by Laura. 
As Petrarca loved her, — 

" Id, Manli ! non est turpe, magis miserum est." 

Love is the purifier of the heart ; its depths are less turbid than 
its shallows. In despite of precepts and arguments, the most 
sedate and the most religious of women think charitably, and 
even reverentially, of the impassioned poet. Constancy is the 
antagonist of frailty, exempt from the captivity and above the 
assaults of sin. 

There is much resemblance in the character of Petrarca to 
that of Abelard. Both were learned, both were disputatious, 
both were handsome, both were vain ; both ran incessantly back- 
ward and forward from celebrity to seclusion, from seclusion to 
celebrity; both loved unhappily; but the least fortunate was 
the most beloved. 

Devoted as Petrarca was to the Classics, and prone as the 
Italian poets are to follow and imitate them, he stands apart 
with Laura ; and if some of his reflections are to be found in 
the sonnets of Cino da Pistoja, and a few in the more precious 
reliquary of Latin Elegy, he seems disdainful of repeating in 
her ear what has ever been spoken in another's. Although a 
cloud of pure incense rises up and veils the intensity of his 
love, it is such love as animates all creatures upon earth, and 
tends to the same object in all. Throughout life we have been 
accustomed to hear of the Platonic : absurd as it is everywhere, 
it is most so here. Nothing in the voluminous works of Plato 
authorizes us to affix this designation to simple friendship, to 
friendship exempt from passion. On the contrary, the philos- 
opher leaves us no doubt whatever that his notion of love is 
sensual.-' He says expressly what species of it, and from what 

1 A mysterious and indistinct idea, not dissipated by the closest view 
of the original, led the poetical mind of Shelley into the labyrinth that en- 
compassed the garden of Academus. He has given us an accurate and 
graceful translation of the most eloquent of Plato's dialogues. Consist- 
ently with modesty he found it impossible to present the whole to his 
readers ; but as the subject is entirely on the nature of love, they will dis- 
cover that nothing is more unlike Petrarca's. The trifles, the quibbles, 
the unseasonable jokes of what is exhibited in very harmonious Greek, 
and in English nearly as harmonious, pass uncensured and unnoticed by 
the fascinated Shelley. So his gentleness and warmth of heart induceo. 



384 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

bestowers, should be the reward of sages and heroes, — " Dii 
meUora piis ! " 

Besides Sonnets and Canzoni Petrarca wrote " Sestine ; " so 
named because each stanza contains six verses, and each poem 
six stanzas, to the last of which three lines are added. If the 
terza-rima is disagreeable to the ear, what is the sestina, in 
which there are only six rhymes to thirty-six verses, and all 
these respond to the same words ! Cleverness in distortion 
can proceed no further. Petrarca wearied the popes by his 
repeated solicitations that they would abandon Avignon : he 
never thought of repeating a sestina to them, — it would have 
driven the most obtuse and obstinate out to sea, and he never 
would have removed his hands from under the tiara until he 
entered the port of Civita-Vecchia. While our poet was thus 
amusing his ingenuity by the most intolerable scheme of rhym- 
ing that the poetry of any language has exhibited, his friend 
Boccaccio was occupied in framing that very stanza, the ottava- 
rima, which so delights us in Berni, Ariosto, and Tasso. But 
Tasso is most harmonious when he expatiates most freely, 
"numerisque fertur lege solutis," — for instance, in the 
" Aminta," where he is followed by Milton in his " Lycidas." 

We left Petrarca not engaged in these studies of his retire- 
ment, but passing in triumph through the capital of the world. 
On his way toward Avignon, where he was ambitious of display- 
ing his fresh laurels, he stayed a short time at Parma with Azzo 
da Correggio, who had taken possession of that city. Azzo was 
among the most unprincipled, ungrateful, and mean of the 
numerous petty tyrants who have infested Italy. Petrarca's 
love of liberty never quite outrivalled his love of princes, — for 
which Boccaccio mildly expostulates with him, and Sismondi, 
as liberal, wise, and honest as Boccaccio, severely reprehends 
him. But what other, loving as he loved, would have urged in- 
cessantly the return to Italy, the abandonment of Avignon ? At 
times, beyond a doubt, he preferred his imperfect hopes to the 
complete restoration of Italian glory ; but he shook them like 

him to look with affection on the poetry of Petrarca, — poetry by how 
many degrees inferior to his own ! Nevertheless, with justice and pro- 
priety he ranks Dante higher in the same department, who indeed has 
described love more eloquently than any other poet, excepting (who 
always must be excepted) Shakspeare. Francesca and Beatrice open all 
the heart, and fill it up with tenderness and with pity. 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 385 

dust from his bosom, and Laura was less than Rome. Shall we 
refuse the name of patriot to such a man? No ! those alone 
will do it who have little to lose or leave. Sismondi, who never 
judges harshly, never hastily, passes no such sentence on him. 

So pleased was Petrarca with his residence at Parma that he 
purchased a house in the city, where he completed his poem of 
" Africa." He was now about to rejoin at Lombes his friend 
and diocesan, — whom he saw in a dream, pale as death. He 
communicated this dream to several persons ; and twenty-five 
days afterward he received the intelligence of its perfect truth. 
Another friend, more advanced in years, Dionigi di Borgo San 
Sepolcro, soon followed. Before the expiration of the year he 
was installed archdeacon of Parma. Soon after this appoint- 
ment, Benedict XH. died, and Clement VI. succeeded. This 
pontiff was superior to all his predecessors in gracefulness of 
manners and delicacy of taste, and at his accession the corrup- 
tions of the papal court became less gross and offensive. He 
divided his time between literature and the ladies, — not quite 
impartially. The people of Rome began to entertain new and 
higher hopes that their city would again be the residence of 
Christ's vicegerent. To this intent they delegated eighteen 
of the principal citizens, and chose Petrarca, who had received 
the freedom of the city on his coronation, to present at once a 
remonstrance and an invitation. The polite and wary pontiff 
heard him complacently, talked affably and familiarly with him, 
conferred on him the priory of Migliorino ; but, being a French- 
man, thought it gallant and patriotic to remain at Avignon. 
Petrarca was little disposed to return with the unsuccessful del- 
egates. He continued at Avignon, where his countryman Sen- 
nuccio del Bene, who visited the same society as Laura, and 
who knew her personally, gave him frequent information of her, 
though little hope. 

Youth has swifter wings than Love. Petrarca had loved 
Laura sixteen years ; but all the beauty that had left her 
features had settled on his heart, immovable, unchangeable, 
eternal. Politics could, however, at all times occupy him, — 
not always worthily. He was induced by the pope to under- 
take a mission to Naples, and to claim the government of that 
kingdom on the part of his holiness. The good king Robert 
was dead, and had bequeathed the crown to the elder of his 

25 



386 FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 

two granddaughters. Giovanna, at nine years of age, was be- 
trothed to her cousin Andreas of Hungary, who was three years 
younger. She was beautiful, graceful, gentle, sensible, and fond 
of literature ; he was uncouth, ferocious, ignorant, and gov- 
erned by a Hungarian monk of the same character, Fra Rupert. 
It is deplorable to think that Petrarca could ever have been 
induced to accept an embassy of which the purport was to de- 
prive of her inheritance an innocent and lovely girl, the grand- 
daughter of his friend and benefactor. She received him with 
cordiality, and immediately appointed him her private chap- 
Iain. His departure, he says, was hastened by two causes, — 
first, by the insolence of Fra Rupert, which he has well de- 
scribed ; and secondly, by an atrocious sight, which also he 
has commemorated. He was invited to an entertainment, oi 
which he gives us to understand he knew not at all the nature. 
Suddenly he heard shouts of joy, and " turning his head," he 
beheld a youth of extraordinary strength and beauty, covered 
with dust and blood, expiring at his feet. He left Naples 
without accomplishing the dethronement of Giovanna, or (what 
also was intrusted to him) the liberation from prison of some 
adherents of the Colonnas, — robbers no doubt, and assassins, 
who had made forays into the Neapolitan territory, for all per- 
sons of that description were under the protection of the Col- 
onnas or the Orsini. His failure was the cause of his return, 
and not the ferocity of a monk and a gladiator. 

Petrarca went to Parma on his way back to Avignon. The 
roads were dangerous ; war was raging in the country. His 
friend Azzo had refused to perform the promise he had made 
to Lucchino Visconti, by whose intervention he had obtained 
his dominion, which he was to retain for five years and then 
resign. Azzo, Petrarca found, had taken refuge with Mastino 
della Scala, at Verona ; and he embarked on the Po for that 
city. His friends hastened him forward to Avignon, — some 
by telling him how often the pope had made inquiries about 
him ; and others, that Laura looked melancholy. On his return 
Clement offered him the office of Apostolic secretary ; it was a 
very laborious one, and was declined. 

Laura, pleased by Petrarca' s return to her, was for a time 
less rigorous. Within the year, Charles of Luxemburg, soon 
after made em.peror, went to Avignon. Knowing the celebrity 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 387 

of Laura, and finding her at a ball, he went up to her and 
kissed her forehead and her eyes, "This sweet and strange 
action," says her lover, " filled me with envy." Surely, to him 
at least the sweetness must have been somewhat less than the 
strangeness. She was now indeed verging on her fortieth year ; 
but love is forgetful of arithmetic. The following summer, 
Francesco for the first time visited his only brother Gherardo, 
who had taken the monastic habit in the Chartreuse of Mon- 
trieu. On his return he went to Vaucluse, where he composed 
a treatise "De Otio Religiosorum," which he presented to the 
monastery. 

Very different thoughts and feelings now suddenly burst up- 
on him. Among the seventeen who accompanied him in the 
deputation inviting the pope to Rome, there was another be- 
sides Petrarca chosen for his eloquence. It was Cola Rienzi. 
The love of letters and the spirit of patriotism united them in 
friendship. This extraordinary man, now invested with power, 
had driven the robbers and assassins, with their patrons the 
Orsini and Colonnas, out of Rome, and had estabUshed (what 
rarely are found together) both liberty and order. The dig- 
nity of tribune was conferred on Rienzi ; by which title Petrarca 
addressed him, in a letter of sound advice and earnest solici- 
tation. Now the bishop of Lombes was dead he little feared 
the indignation of the other Colonnas, but openly espoused 
and loudly pleaded the cause of the resuscitated common- 
wealth. The cardinal was probably taught by him to believe, 
that by his influence with Rienzi he might avert from his 
family the disaster and disgrace into which the mass of the 
nobility had fallen. " No family on earth," says he, " is dearer 
to me ; but the republic, Rome, Italy, are dearer." 

Petrarca took leave of the prelate, with amity on both sides 
undiminished ; he also took leave of Laura. He could not 
repress, he could not conceal, he could not moderate his grief, 
nor could he utter one sad adieu. A look of fondness and 
compassion followed his parting steps ; and the lover and 
the beloved were separated forever. He did not think it, else 
never could he have gone ; 'but he thought a brief absence 
might be endured once more, rewarded as it would be with an 
accession to his glory, — and precluded from other union with 
him, in his glory Laura might participate. 



388 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

Retired, and thinking of her duties and her home, sat Laura ; 
not indifferent to the praises of the most celebrated man aUve 
(for her heart in all its regions was womanly) , but tepidly tran- 
quil, or moved invisibly, and retaining her purity amidst the 
uncleanly stream that deluged Avignon. We may imagine that 
she sometimes drew out and unfolded on her bed the apparel, 
long laid apart and carefully preserved by her, in which she 
■ first had captivated the giver of her immortality ; we may im- 
agine that she sometimes compared with him an iUiterate, 
coarse, morose husband, — and perhaps a sigh escaped her, 
and perhaps a tear, as she folded up again the cherished 
gown she wore on that Good Friday. 

On his arrival at Genoa, Petrarca heard of the follies and 
extravagances committed by Rienzi, and instead of pursuing his 
journey to Rome, turned off to Parma. Here he learned that 
the greater part of the Roman nobility, and many of the Co- 
lonnas, had been exterminated by order of the tribune. Un- 
questionably they had long deserved it ; but the exercise of 
such prodigious power unsettled the intellect of Rienzi. In 
January the poet left Parma for Vienna, where on the 25 th 
(1348) he felt the shock of an earthquake. In the preceding 
month a column of fire was observed above the pontifical pal- 
ace. After these harbingers of calamity came that memorable 
plague, to which we owe the immortal work of Boccaccio, — 
a work occupying the next station, in continental Uterature, to 
the " Divina Commedia," and displaying a greater variety of 
powers. The pestilence had now penetrated into the northern 
parts of Italy, and into the southern of France ; it had ravaged 
Marseilles, it was raging in Avignon. Petrarca sent messenger 
after messenger for intelligence. Their return was tardy ; and 
only on the 19th of May was notice brought to him that Laura 
had departed on the 6th of April, at six in the morning, — the 
very day, the very hour, he met her first. Beloved by all about 
her for her gentleness and serenity, she expired in the midst of 
relatives and friends. But did never her eyes look round for 
one who was away? And did not love, did not glory, tell him 
that in that chamber he might at least have died ? 

Other friends were also taken from him. Two months after this 
event he lost Cardinal Colonna ; and then Sennuccio del Bene, 
the depositary of his thoughts and the interpreter of Laura's. 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 389 

The Lord of Mantua, Luigi Gonzaga, had often invited Pe- 
trarca to his court, and he now accepted the invitation. From 
this residence he went to visit the hamlet of Pietola, formerly 
Andes, the birthplace of Virgil. At the cradle of her illustrious 
poet the glories of ancient Rome burst again upon him ; and 
hearing that Charles of Luxemburg was about to cross the Alps, 
he addressed to him an eloquent exhortation, De pacificandct 
Italia. After three years the emperor sent him an answer. The 
testy republican may condemn Petrarca, as Dante was con- 
demned before, for inviting a stranger to become supreme in 
Italy ; but how many evils would this step have obviated ! 
Recluses and idlers, and often the most vicious, had been ele- 
vated to the honors of demigods ; and incense had been wafted 
before the altar, among the most solemn rites of religion, to 
pilferers and impostors. As the Roman empire, with all the 
kingdoms of the earth, was sold under the spear by the Prsto- 
rian legion, so now, with title-deeds more defective, was the 
kingdom of heaven knocked down to the best bidder. It was 
not a desire of office and emolument, it was a love of freedom 
and of Roman glory, which turned the eyes of Petrarca, first 
in one quarter, then in another, to seek for the deliverance 
and regeneration of his native land. 

No preferment, no friendship, stood before this object. In 
the beginning Petrarca exhorted Rienzi to the prosecution of 
his enterprise, and augured its success. But the vanity of the 
tribune, like Bonaparte's, precipitated his ruin. Both were so 
improvident as to be quite unaware that he who continues to 
play at double or quits must at last lose all. Rienzi, different 
from that other, was endowed by Nature with manly, frank, and 
generous sentiments. Meditative but communicative, studious 
but accessible, he would have followed, we may well believe, 
the counsels of Petrarca, had they been given him personally. 
Cautious but not suspicious, severe but not vindictive, he might 
perhaps have removed a D'Enghien by the axe, but never a 
L'Ouverture by famine. He would not have banished, he 
would not have treated with insolence and indignity, the great- 
est writer of the age from a consciousness of inferiority in in- 
tellect, as that other did in Madame de Stael. With that other, 
similarity of views and sentiments was no bond of union ; he 
hated, he maligned, he persecuted, the wisest and bravest who 



390 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

would not serve his purposes ; patriotism was a ridicule, honor 
was an insult to him, and veracity a reproach. The heart of 
Rienzi was not insane. Instead of ordering the murder, he 
would have condemned to the gallows the murderer of such a 
inan as Hofer. In his impetuous and eccentric Course he car- 
ried less about him of the Middle Ages than the pestilent me- 
teor that flamed forth in ours. Petrarca had too much wisdom, 
too much virtue, to praise or countenance him in his pride and 
insolence ; but his fall was regretted by him, and is even still 
to be regretted by his country. It is indeed among the great- 
est calamities that have befallen the human race, condemned 
for several more centuries to lie in chains and darkness. 

In the year of the jubilee (1350) Petrarca went again to 
Rome. Passing through Florence, he there visited Boccaccio, 
whom he had met at Naples. What was scarcely an acquain- 
tance grew rapidly into friendship ; and this friendship, honor- 
able to both, lasted throughout life, unbroken and undiminished. 
Both were eloquent, both richly, endowed with fancy and imag- 
ination ; but Petrarca, who had incomparably the least of these 
qualities, had a readier faculty of investing them with verse, — 
in which Boccaccio, fond as he was of poetry, ill succeeded. 
There are stories in the " Decameron " which require more 
genius to conceive and execute than all the poetry of Petrarca ; 
and indeed there is in Boccaccio more variety of the mental 
powers than in any of his countrymen, greatly more deep 
feeling, greatly more mastery over the human heart, than in 
any other but Dante. Honesty, manliness, a mild and social 
independence, rendered him the most delightful companion 
and the sincerest friend. 

Petrarca on his road through Arezzo was received with all 
the honors due to him ; and among the most dehcate and ac- 
ceptable to a man of his sensibility was the attendance of the 
principal inhabitants in a body, who conducted him to the 
house in which he was born, showing him that no alteration 
had been permitted to be made in it. Padua was the place to 
which he was going. On his arrival he found that the object 
of his visit, Giovanni da Carrara, had been murdered ; never- 
theless, he remained there several days, and then proceeded to 
Venice. Andrea Dandolo was doge, and war was about to 
break out between the Venetians and the Genoese. Petrarca, 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 39 1 

who always wished most anxiously the concord and union of 
the Italian States, wrote a letter to Dandolo, powerful in 
reasoning and eloquence, dissuading him from hostilities. The 
poet on this occasion showed himself more provident than the 
greatest statesman of the age. On the 6th of April, the third 
anniversary of Laura's death, a message was conveyed to him 
from the republic of Florence restoring his property and his 
rights of citizen. Unquestionably he who brought the message 
counselled the measure, and calculated the day. Boccaccio 
again embraced Petrarca. 

It was also proposed to establish a university at Florence, 
and to nominate the illustrious poet its rector. Declining the 
office, he returned to Vaucluse, but soon began to fancy that 
his duty called him to Avignon. Rome and all Italy swarmed 
with robbers. Clement, from the bosom of the Vicomtesse de 
Turenne, consulted with the cardinals on the means of restor- 
ing security to his dominions. Petrarca too was consulted, 
and in the most elaborate and most eloquent of his writings he 
recommended the humiliation of the nobles, the restoration of 
the republic, and the enactment of equal laws. 

The people of Rome however had taken up arms again, 
and had elected for their chief magistrate Giovanni Cerroni. 
The privileges of the popedom were left untouched and un- 
questioned ; not a drop of blood was shed ; property was 
secure ; tranquillity was established, Clement, whose health 
was declining, acquiesced. Petrarca, disappointed before, was 
reserved and silent. But his justice, his humanity, his grati- 
tude were called into action elsewhere. 

Ten years had elapsed since his mission to the court of 
Naples. The king Andreas had been assassinated, and the 
queen Giovanna was accused of the crime. Andreas had 
alienated from him all the Neapolitans excepting the servile, 
which in every court form a party, and in most a majority. 
Luigi of Taranto, the queen's cousin, loved her from her child- 
hood, but left her at that age. Graceful and gallant as he was, 
there is no evidence that she placed too implicit and intimate 
a confidence in him. Never has any great cause been judged 
with less discretion by posterity. The pope, to whom she 
appealed in person, and who was deeply interested in her 
condemnation, with all the cardinals and all the judges unani- 



392 FRANCESCO PETRARCA., 

mously and unreservedly acquitted her of participation or con- 
nivance or knowledge. Giannone, the most impartial and 
temperate of historians, who neglected no sources of informa- 
tion, bears testimony in her behalf. Petrarca and Boccaccio, 
men abhorrent from every atrocity, never mention her but with 
gentleness and compassion. The writers of the country, who 
were nearest to her person and her times, acquit her of all 
complicity. Nevertheless, she has been placed in the dock by 
the side of Mary Stuart. It is as certain that Giovanna was 
not guilty as that Mary was. She acknowledged before the 
whole Pontifical Court her hatred of her husband, and in the 
simphcity of her heart attributed it to magic. How different 
was the magic of Othello on Desdemona ! and this too was 
believed. 

If virtuous thoughts and actions can compensate for an irre- 
coverable treasure which the tomb encloses, surely now must 
calm and happiness have returned to Petrarca's bosom. Not 
only had he defended the innocent and comforted the sorrow- 
ful, in Giovanna ; but with singular care and delicacy he recon- 
ciled two statesmen whose disunion would have been ruinous 
to her government, — AcciajoH and Barili. Another generous 
action was now performed by him, in behalf of a man by whom 
he and Rome and Italy had been deceived. Rienzi, after 
wandering about for nearly four years, was cast into prison at 
Prague, and then delivered up to the pope. He demanded to 
be judged according to law, which was refused. The spirit 
of Petrarca rose up against this injustice, and he addressed a 
letter to the Roman people, urging their interference. They 
did nothing. But it was believed at Avignon that Rienzi, the 
correspondent and friend of Petrarca, was not only an eloquent 
and learned man, but (what Petrarca had taught the world to 
reverence) a poet. This caused a relaxation in the severity 
of his confinement, subsequently his release, and ultimately his 
restoration to power. 

Again the office of apostolic secretary was offered to Pe- 
trarca; again he declined it; again he retired to Vaucluse. 
Clement died ; Innocent was elected, — so illiterate and silly 
a creature that he took the poet for a wizard because he read 
Virgil. It was time to revisit Italy. Acciajoli had invited him 
to Naples, Dandolo to Venice ; but he went to neither. Gio- 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 393 

vanni Visconti, Archbishop of Milan, had duly succeeded his 
brother Lucchino in the sovereignty. Clement, just before his 
decease, sent a nuncio to him, ordering him to make choice 
between the temporal and spiritual power. The duke-arch- 
bishop made no answer ; but on the next Sunday, after cele- 
brating pontifical Mass in the cathedral, he took in one hand 
a crozier, in the other a drawn sword, and "Tell the Holy 
Father," said he, " here is the spiritual, here the temporal : 
one defends the other." Innocent was unlikely to intimidate 
a prince who had thus defied his predecessor. Giovanni Vis- 
conti was among the most able statesmen that Italy has pro- 
duced, and Italy has produced a greater number of the greatest 
than all the rest of the universe. Genoa, reduced to extremi- 
ties by Venice, had thrown herself under his protection ; and 
Venice, although at the head of the Italian league, guided by 
Dandolo and flushed with conquest, felt herself unable to con- 
tend with him. Visconti, who expected and feared the arrival 
of the emperor in Italy, assumed the semblance of moderation. 
He engaged Petrarca, whom he had received with every mark 
of distinction and affection, to preside in a deputation with 
offers of peace to Dandolo. The doge refused the conditions, 
and Visconti lost no time in the prosecution of hostilities. 
These were so successful that Venice was in danger of falling ; 
and Dandolo died of a broken heart. In the following month 
died also Giovanni Visconti. The emperor Charles, who had 
deceived the hopes of the Venetians by delaying to advance 
into Italy, now crossed the Alps, and Petrarca met him at 
Mantua. Finding him, as usual, wavering and avaricious, the 
poet soon left him, and returned to the nephews and heirs of 
Visconti. He was induced by Galeazzo to undertake an em- 
bassy to the emperor. Ill disposed as was Charles to the 
family, he declared that he had no intention of carrying his 
arms into Italy. On this occasion he sent to Petrarca the 
diploma of Count Palatine, in a golden box, which golden box 
the Count Francesco returned to the German chancellor, and 
he made as little use of the title. 

Petrarca now settled at Garignano, a village three miles from 
Milan, to which residence he gave the name of Linterno, from 
the villa of Scipio on the coast of Naples. Fond as he was of 
the great and powerful, he did not always give them the prefer- 



394 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

ence. Capra, a goldsmith of Bergamo, enthusiastic in admira- 
tion of his genius, invited him with earnest entreaties to honor 
that city with a visit. On his arrival the governor and nobility- 
contended which should perform the offices of hospitality to- 
ward so illustrious a guest ; but he went at once to the house 
of Capra, where he was treated by his worthy host with princely 
magniiicence, and with dehcate attentions which princely mag- 
nificence often overlooks. The number of choice volumes in 
his library and the conversation of Capra were evidences of a 
cultivated understanding and a virtuous heart. In the winter 
following (1359) Boccaccio spent several days at Lintemo, 
and the poet gave 'him his Latin Eclogues in his own hand- 
writing. On his return to Florence, Boccaccio sent his friend 
the " Divina Commedia," written out likewise by himself, and 
accompanied with profuse commendations. 

Incredible as it may appear, this noble poem, the glory of 
Italy, and admitting at that time but one other in the world to 
a proximity with it, was wanting to the library of Petrarca. 
His reply was cold and cautious : the more popular man, it 
might he thought, took umbrage at the loftier. He was 
jealous even of the genius which had gone by, and which bore 
no resemblance to his own except in the purity and intensity 
of love, for this was a portion of the genius in both. Petrarca 
was certainly the very best man that ever was a very vain one : 
and vanity has a better excuse for itself in him than in any other, 
since none was more admired by the world at large, and par- 
ticularly by that part of it which the wisest are most desirous 
to conciliate, turning their wisdom in full activity to the eleva- 
tion of their happiness. Laura, it is true, was sensible of little 
or no passion for him ; but she was pleased with his, and stood 
like a beautiful Cariatid of stainless marble at the base of an 
image on which the eyes of Italy were fixed. 

Petrarca, like Boccaccio, regretted at the close of life not 
only the pleasure he had enjoyed, but also the pleasure he 
had imparted to the world. Both of them, as their mental 
faculties were diminishing and their animal spirits were leaving 
them apace, became unconscious how incomparably greater 
was the benefit than the injury done by their writings. In 
Boccaccio there are certain tales so coarse that modesty casts 
them aside, and those only who are irreparably contaminated 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 395 

can receive any amusement from them ; but in the greater 
part what truthfulness, what tenderness, what joyousness, what 
purity ! Their levities and gayeties are like the harmless light- 
nings of a summer sky in the delightful regions they were 
written in. Petrarca, with a mind which bears the same pro- 
portion to Boccaccio's as the Sorga bears to the Arno, has 
been the solace of many sad hours to those who probably were 
more despondent. It may be that at the time when he was 
writing some of his softest and most sorrowful complaints, his 
dejection was caused by dalliance with another far more indul- 
gent than Laura. But his ruling passion was ungratified by 
her ; therefore she died unsung, and, for aught we know to the 
contrary, unlamented. He had forgotten what he had de- 
clared in Sonnet 17, — 

" E, se di lui forse altra donna spera, 
Vive in speranza debile e fallace, 
Mio, perche sdegno cio ch' a voi displace, etc. 

If any other hopes to find 

That love in me which you despise, 
Ah ! let her leave the hope behind : 

I hold from all what you alone should prize." 

It can only be said that he ceased to be a visionary ; and 
we ought to rejoice that an inflammation of ten years' recur- 
rence sank down into a regular fit, and settled in no vital part. 
Yet I cannot but wish that he had been as zealous in giving 
instruction and counsel to his only son — a youth whom he 
represents in one of his letters to have been singularly modest 
and docile — as he had been in giving it to princes, emperors, 
and popes, who exhibited very little of those qualities. 
While he was at his villa at Linterno, the unfortunate youth 
robbed the house in Milan, and fled. We may reasonably 
suppose that home had become irksome to him, and that 
neither the eye nor the heart of a father was over him. Gio- 
vanni was repentant, was forgiven, and died. 

The tenderness of Petrarca, there is too much reason to 
fear, was at all times concentrated in self. A nephew of his 
early patron Colonna, in whose house he had spent many 
happy hours, was now deprived of house and home, and being 
reduced to abject poverty had taken refuge in Bologna. He 



396 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

had surely great reason to complain of Petrarca, who never in 
his journeys to and fro had visited or noticed him, or, rich as 
he was in benefices by the patronage of his family, offered him 
any succor. This has been excused by Mr. Campbell : it may 
be short of turpitude, but it is farther, much farther, from gen- 
erosity and from justice. Never is mention made by him of 
Laura's children, whom he must have seen with her, and one 
or other of whom must have noticed with the pure delight of 
unsuspicious childhood his fond glances at the lovely mother. 
Surely in all the years he was devoted to Laura, one or other of 
her children grieved her by ill-health, or perhaps by dying ; for 
virtue never set a mark on any door so that sickness and sor- 
row must not enter. But Petrarca thought more about her 
eyes than about those tears that are usually the inheritance of 
the brightest, and may well be supposed to have said in some 
inedited canzone, — 

" What care I what tears there be, 
If the tears are not for me ? " 

His love, when it administered nothing to his celebrity, was 
silent. Of his two children, a son and a daughter, not a word 
is uttered in any of his verses. How beautifully does Ovid, 
who is thought in general to have been less tender, and was 
probably less chaste, refer to the purer objects of his affection, — 

"Unica nata, mei justissima causa doloris," etc. 

Petrarca's daughter lived to be the solace of his age, and 
married happily. Boccaccio, in the most beautiful and inter- 
esting letter in the whole of Petrarca's correspondence, men- 
tions her kind reception of him, and praises her beauty and 
demeanor. Even the unhappy boy appears to have been by 
nature of nearly the same character. According to the father's 
own account, his disposition was gentle and tractable ; he was 
modest and shy, and abased his eyes before the smart witti- 
cisms of Petrarca on the defects his own negligence had caused. 
A parent should never excite a blush, nor extinguish one. 

Domestic cares bore indeed lightly on a man perpetually 
busy in negotiations. He could not but despise the emperor, 
who yet had influence enough over him to have brought him 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 397 

into Germany. But bands of robbers infested the road, and the 
plague was raging in many of the intermediate cities. It had 
not reached Venice, and there Petrarca toolc refuge. ' Wherever 
he went, he carried a great part of his library with him ; but he 
found it now more inconvenient than ever, and therefore he 
made a present of it to the republic, on condition that it 
neither should be sold nor separated. It was never sold, it 
was never separated ; but it was suffered to fall into decay, and 
not a single volume of the collection is now extant. While 
he was at Verona, his friend Boccaccio made him another 
visit, and remained with him three summer months. The 
plague deprived him of Lselius, of Socrates, and of Barbato. 
Among his few surviving friends was Philip de Cabassoles, now 
patriarch of Jerusalem, to whom he had promised the dedi- 
cation of his treatise on " Solitary Life," which he began at 
Vaucluse. 

Urban V., successor to Innocent, designed to reform the dis- 
cipline of the Church, and Petrarca thought he had a better 
chance than ever of seeing its head at Rome. Again he wrote 
a letter on the occasion, learned, eloquent, and enthusiastically 
bold. Urban had perhaps already fixed his determination. 
Despite of remonstrances on the side of the French king, and 
of intrigues on the side of the cardinals, whose palaces and 
mistresses must be left behind. Urban quitted Avignon on the 
30th of April, 1367, and, after a stay of four months at Viterbo, 
entered Rome. Before this event Petrarca had taken into his 
house, and employed as secretary, a youth of placid temper and 
sound understanding, which he showed the best disposition to 
cultivate. His name was Giovanni Malpighi, better known 
afterward as Giovanni da Ravenna. He was admitted to the 
table, to the walks, and to the travels of his patron, enjoying far 
more of his kindness and affection than, at the same time of 
life, had ever been bestowed upon his son. Petrarca superin- 
tended his studies, and prepared him for the clerical profes- 
sion. Unexpectedly one morning this youth entered his study, 
and declared he would stay no longer in the house. In vain 
did Petrarca try to alter his determination ; neither hope nor 
fear moved him, and nothing was left but to accompany him 
as far as Venice. Giovanni would see the tomb of Virgil ; 
he would visit the birthplace of Ennius ; he would learn 



398 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

Greek at Constantinople. He went however no farther than 
Pavia, where Petrarca soon followed him, and pardoned his 
extravagance. 

Urban had no sooner established the holy see at Rome 
again than he began to set Italy in a flame, raising troops in 
all quarters, and directing them against the Visconti. The 
emperor too, in earnest, had resolved on war. But Bernabo 
Visconti, who knew his avarice, knew how to divert his arms. 
He came into Italy, but only to lead the pope's palfrey and 
to assist at the empress's coronation. Urban sent an invita- 
tion to Petrarca; and he prepared, although in winter, to re- 
visit Rome. Conscious that his health was decUning, he made 
his will. To the Lord of Padua he bequeathed a picture of 
the Virgin by Giotto, and to Boccaccio fifty gold florins for 
a cloak to keep him warm in his study. 

Such was his debility, Petrarca could proceed no farther 
than Ferrara, and thought it best to return to Padua. For the 
benefit of the air he settled in the hamlet of Arqua, where he 
built a villa, and where his daughter and her husband Fran- 
cesco di Brossano came to live with him. Urban died, and 
was succeeded by Gregory XL, who would have added to the 
many benefices held already by Petrarca; and the poet in 
these his latter days was not at all averse to the gifts of fortune. 
His old friend the bishop of Cabassoles, now a cardinal, was 
sent as legate to Perugia. Petrarca was desirous of visiting him, 
and the rather as the prelate's health was declining ; but be- 
fore his own enabled him to undertake the journey, he had 
expired. 

One more effort of friendship was the last reserved for him. 
Hostilities broke out between the Venetians and Francesco da 
Ferrara, aided by the king of Hungary, who threatened to aban- 
don his cause unless he consented to terms of peace. Venice 
now recovered her advantages, and reduced Francesco to the 
most humihating conditions : he was obliged to send his son to 
ask pardon of the republic. To render this less intolerable, he 
prevailed on Petrarca to accompany the youth, and to plead his 
cause before the senate. Accompanied by a numerous and a 
splendid train, they arrived at the city ; audience was granted 
them on the morrow. But fatigue and illness so affected Pe- 
trarca that he could not deliver the speech he had prepared. 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 399 

Among the many of his compositions which are lost to us is this 
oration. Happily there is preserved the friendly letter he wrote 
to Boccaccio on his return, — the last of his writings. During 
the greater part of his lifetime, though no less zealous than 
Boccaccio himself in recovering the works of the Classics, he 
never had read the " Divina Commedia ; " nor, until this period 
of it, the "Decameron," — the two most admirable works the 
Continent has produced from the restoration of learning to the 
present day. Boccaccio, who had given him the one, now gave 
him the other. In his letter of thanks for it, he excuses the 
levity of his friend in some places, attributes it to the season of 
life in which the book was written, and relates the effect the 
story of Griseldis had produced, not only on himself, but on 
another of less sensibility. He even learned it by heart, that 
he might recite it to his friends ; and he sent the author a 
Latin translation of it. Before this, but among his latest com- 
positions, he had written an indignant answer to an unknown 
French monk who criticised his letter to Urban, and who had 
spoken contemptuously of Rome and Italy. Monks generally 
know at what most vulnerable part to aim the dagger, and the 
Frenchman struck Petrarca between his vanity and his patriot- 
ism. A greater mind would have looked down indifferently on 
a dwarf assailant, and would never have lifted him up even for 
derision. The most prominent rocks and headlands are most 
exposed to the elements ; but those which can resist the vio- 
lence of the storms are in little danger from the corrosion of 
the limpets. 

On the 1 8th of July, 1374, Petrarca was found in his 
library, his brow upon a book he had been reading : he was 
dead. 

There is no record of any literary man, or perhaps of any 
man whatsoever, to whom such honors, — honors of so many 
kinds, and from such different quarters and personages, — have 
been offered. They began in his early life, and we are walk- 
ing at this hour in the midst of the procession. Few travellers 
dare to return from Italy until they can describe to the attentive 
ear and glistening eye the scenery of the Euganean hills. He 
who has loved truly, and above all he who has loved unhappily, 
approaches, as holiest altars are approached, the cenotaph on 
the little columns at Arqua. 



400 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

The Latin works of Petrarca were esteemed by himself more 
highly than his Italian.^ His Letters and his Dialogues, " De 
Contemptu Mundi," are curious and valuable. In the latter he 
converses with Saint Augustine, to whom he is introduced by 
" Truth," the same personage who appears in his " Africa," and 
whom Voltaire also invokes to descend on his little gravelly 
Champ de Mars, the " Henriade." The third dialogue is about 
his love for Laura, and nobly is it defended. He wrote a treatise 
on the ignorance of one's self and others {inultoriini), in which 
he has taken much from Cicero and Augustine, and in which 
he afterward forgot a little of his own. " Ought we to take it 
to heart," says he, "if we are ill-spoken of by the ignorant and 
malicious, when the same thing happened to Homer and De- 
mosthenes, to Cicero and Virgil?" He was fond of follow- 
ing these two, — Cicero in the number of his epistles, Virgil in 
eclogue and in epic. 

Of his twelve Eclogues, which by a strange nomenclature 
he also called Bucolics, many are satirical. In the sixth and 
seventh Pope Clement is represented in the character of Mitio. 
In the sixth Saint Peter, under the name of Pamphilus, re- 
proaches him for the condition in which he keeps his flock, and 
asks him what he has done with the wealth intrusted to him. 
Mitio answers that he has kept the gold arisipg from the sale 
of the lambs, and that he has given the milk to certain friends 
of his. He adds that his spouse, very differeYit from the old 
woman Pamphilus was contented with, went about in gold and 
jewels. As for the rams and goats, they played their usual 
gambols in the meadow, and he himself looked on. Pamphi- 
lus is indignant, and tells him he ought to be flogged and sent 
to prison for life. Mitio drops on a sudden his peaceful char- 
acter, and calls Pamphilus a faithless runaway slave, deserving 
the fetter and the cross. In the twelfth eclogue, under the ap- 
pellations of Pan and Arcticus, are represented the kings of 
France and England. Arcticus is indignant at the favors Pan 
receives from Faustula (Avignon). To King John the pope 

^ It is incredible that Julius Csesar Scaliger, who has criticised so vast 
a number of later poets quite forgotten, and deservedly, should never have 
even seen the Latin poetry of Petrarca. His words are : " Primus, quod 
equidem sciam, Petrarca ex lutulenta, barbaric os coelo attollere ausus est, 
cujiis, quemadmodum diximus alibi, qiiod nihil videre lictterit, ejus viri cas- 
tigationes sicut et alia multa, relinquam studiosis." (Poet. 1. vi. p. 769). 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 4OI 

had remitted his tenths, so that he was enabled to continue the 
war against England, which ended in his captivity. 

Petrarca in all his Latin poetry, and indeed in all his Latin 
compositions, is an imitator, and generally a very unsuccessful 
one j but his versification is more harmonious than any since 
Boethius, and his language has more the air of antiquity and 
more resembles the better models. 

We now come to his Italian poetry. In this he is less defi- 
cient in originality, though in several pieces he has imitated 
too closely Cino da Pistoja, — " Mille dubj in un di," for in- 
stance, in his seventh canzone. Cino is crude and enigmatical ; 
but there is a beautiful sonnet by him addressed to Dante, 
which he wrote on passing the Apennines, and stopping to 
visit the tomb and invoke the name of Selvaggia. Petrarca 
late in life made a collection of sonnets on Laura ; they are 
not printed in the order in which they were written. The first 
is a kind of prologue to the rest, as the first ode of Horace is. 
There is melancholy grace in this preliminary piece. The third 
ought to have been the second ; for after having in the first 
related his errors and regrets, we might have expected to find 
the cause of them in the following, — we find it in the third. 
" Di pensier in pensier," " Chiare dolci e fresche acque," " Se 
11 pensier che mi strugge," " Benedetto sia il giorno," " Solo e 
pensoso," are incomparably better than the "Tre Sorelle " by 
which the Italians are enchanted, and which the poet himself 
views with great complacency. These three are upon the eyes 
of Laura, The seventh canzone, the second of the " Sorelle," 
or, as they have often been styled, the "Grazie," is the most 
admired of them. In this, however, the ear is offended at 
"Qual air al/a." The critics do not observe this sad caco- 
phony. And nothing is less appropriate than, — 

" Ed al fuoco gentil ond' io tiitt'' ardo." 
The close is, — 

" Canzon ! Tuna Sorella e poco inanzi, 
^- E 1' altra sento in quel medesmo albergo 

Apparecchiarsi, ond' io piii carta verge." 

This ruins the figure. What becomes of the Sorella, and the 
albergo, and the apparecchiarsi ? The third is less celebrated 
than the two elder sisters. 

26 



402 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

Muratori, the most judicious of Italian commentators, gives 
these canzoni the preference over the others ; but it remained 
for a foreigner to write correctly on them, and to demonstrate 
that they are very faulty. I find more faults and graver than 
Ginguene has found in them ; but I do not complain with him 
so much that the commencement of the third is heavy and 
languid, as that serious thoughts are intersected with quibbles 
and spangled with conceits. I will here remark freely, and in 
some detail, on this part of the poetry of Petrarca. 

SoNETTO XXL It will be difficult to find in all the domains 
of poetry so frigid a conceit as in the conclusion of this 
sonnet, — 

" E far delle sue braccia a se stess' ombra." 

Strange that it should be followed by the most beautiful he 
ever wrote, — 

" Solo e pensoso," etc. 



Canzone I. 



" Ne mano ancor m' agghiaccia 
L' esser coperto poi di bianche piume, 
Ond' io presi col suon color di cigno ! " 



How very inferior is this childish play to^ Horace's ode, in 
which he also becomes a swan ! 

Canzone III. Among the thousand offices which he attrib- 
utes to the eyes is carrying the keys. Here he talks of the 
sweet eyes carrying the keys of his sweet thoughts. Again he 
has a peep at the keyhole in the seventh^ — 

"Quel cuor ond' hanno i begli occhi la chiave." 

He also lets us into the secret that he is really fond of com- 
plaining, and that he takes pains to have his eyes always full 
of tears, — 

" Ed io son un di quei ch' il pianger ^/(JZ'rt;, 
E par ben ch' io m' ingegno 
Che di lagrime pixgni 
Sien gli occhi miei." 

SoNETTO XX. Here are Phoebus, Vulcan, Jupiter, CcBsar, 
Janus, Saturn, Mars, Orion, Neptune, Juno, and a chorus of 
Angels ; and they have only fourteen lines to turn about in ! 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 403 

Canzone IV. The last part has merit from " E perche un 
poco." 

SoNETTO XXXIX. In this beautiful sonnet, as in almost 
every one, there is a redundancy of words ; for instance, — 

" Benedetto sia il giorno, e '1 mese, e 1' anno, 
E la stagion, e '/ tempo." 

SoNETTO XL. is very serious. It is a prayer to God that his 
heart may be turned to other desires, and that it may re- 
member how on that day He was crucified. 

Sestina III. With what derision would a poet of the 
present day be treated who had written such stuff as — 

" E pel bel petto 1' htdurato ghiaccio 
Clie trae dal mio si dolor osi venti." 

SoNETTO XLIV. " L'aspetto sacro " is ingenious, yet with- 
out conceits. 

Canzone VIII. So far as we know, it has never been re- 
marked (nor indeed is an Italian Academia worth a remark) 
that the motto of the Academia della Crusca, " II piu bel fior 
ne coghe," is from 

" E, le onorate 
Cose cercando, il piu bel fior ne coglie." 

SoNETTO XLVI. Here he wonders whence all the ink can 
come with which he fills his paper on Laura. 

SoNETTO L. In the fourteenth year of his passion, his 
ardor is increasing to such a degree that he says, " Death 
approaches . . . and life flies away" — 

" Che la morte m'appressa . . . eU viver fugge." 

We beheve there is no instance where life has resisted the 
encounter. 

SoNETTO LIX. This is very different from all his others. 
The first part is poor enough ; the last would be interesting if 
we could believe it to be more than imaginary. Here he 
boasts of the impression he had made on Laura, yet in his last 
canzone he asks her whether he ever had. The words of this 
sonnet are, — 

" Era ben forte la nemica mia, 
E lei viddi io ferita in mezzo al core.'" 



404 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

But we may well take all this for ideal, when we read the very 
next, in which he speaks of being free from the thraldom that 
had held him so many years. 

SoNETTO LXVI. The conclusion from " Ne mi lece ascol- 
tar " is very animated ; here is greatly more vigor and incita- 
tion than usual. 

Canzone IX. It would be difficult to find anywhere, except 
in the rarest and most valuable books, so wretched a poem as 
this. The rhymes occur over and over again, not only at the 
close, but often at the fifth and sixth syllables, and then 
another time. Metastasio has managed best the redundant 
rhymes. 

SoNETTO LXXIII. The final part, " L' aura soave," is ex- 
quisitely beautiful, and the harmony complete. 

SoNETTO LXXXIV. " Quel vago impallidir" is among the 
ten best. 

Canzone X. In the last stanza there is a lightness of move- 
ment not always to be found in the graces of Petrarca. 

Canzone XI. This is incomparably the most elaborate work 
of the poet, but it is very far from the perfection of " Solo e 
pensoso." The second and third stanzas are inferior to the 
rest; and the "fera bella e mansueta " is quite unworthy of 
the place it occupies. 

Canzone XIII. is extremely beautiful, until we come to 

" Pur ti medesmo assido, 
Me f reddo, pietra morta in pietra viva" 

Sonetto XCV. "Pommi ovi '1 Sol" is imitated from 
Horace's " Pone me pigris," etc. 

SoNETTO XCVIII. Four verses are filled with the names of 
rivers, excepting the monosyllables non and e. He says that 
all these rivers cannot slake the fire that is the anguish of his 
heart, — no, nor even ivy, fir, pine, beech, or juniper. It is by 
no means a matter of wonder that these subsidiaries lend but 
little aid to the exertions of the fireman. 

SoNETTO ex., — 

" O anime gentili ed amorose " 

has been imitated and improved upon by Redi, in his 
" Donne gentili, divote d' anaore." 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 405 

SoNETTO CXI. No extravagance ever surpassed the invoca- 
tion to the rocks in the water, requiring that henceforward 
there should not be a single one which had neglected to 
learn how to burn with his flames. He himself can only go 
farther in 

SoNETTO CXIX, where he tells us that Laura's eyes can 
burn up the Rhine when it is most frozen, and crack its hardest 
rocks. 

SoNETTO CXXXII. In the precarious state of her health, he 
fears more about the disappointment of his hopes in love thaa 
about her danger. 

SoNETTo CXLVIII. His descriptions of beauty are not 
always distinct and correct ; for example, — 

" Gli occhi sereni e le stellanti ciglia 
La bella bocca angelica . . . de perle 
Piena, e di rose . . . e di dolci parole.'^ 

In this place we shall say a little about " occhi " and •'' ciglia." 
First, the sense would be better and the verse equally good if, 
transposing the epithets, it were written — 

" Gli occhi stellanti e le serene ciglia." 

The Italian poets are very much in the habit of putting the 
eyelashes for the eyes, because " ciglia " is a most useful rhyme. 
The Latin poets, contented with oculi, ocelli, and lumina, 
never employ cilia, of which indeed they appear to have made 
but little account. Greatly more than a hundred times has 
Petrarca inserted " eyes " into the first part of his sonnets ; it 
is rarely that we find one without its occhi. They certainly are 
very ornamental things; but it is not desirable for a poet to 
resemble an Argus. 

Canzone XV. The versification here differs from the others 
but is no less beautiful than in any of them. However, where 
Love appears in person, we would rather that Pharaoh, Rachel, 
etc., were absent. 

SoNETTO CLVII. He tells us on what day he entered the 
labyrinth of love, — 

" Mille trecento ventisette apputtto 
Suir ora prima il di setto d'Aprili." 



406 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

This poetry has very unfairly been taken advantage of, in a book 

" Written by William Prynne Esquier, the 
Year of our Lord sixteen hundred thirty-three." 

SoNETTO CLVIII. He has now loved twenty years. 

SoNETTO CLXI. The first verse is rendered very inharmonious 
by the csesura and the final word having syllables that rhyme. 
" Tutto '1 dipiango," "e per la notte ^uando," "lagnmando," 
and " consnma7tdo " are considered as rhymes, although rhymes 
should be formed by similarity of sound and not by iden- 
tity. The Italians, the Spaniards, and the French reject this 
canon. 

SoNETTO CLXXXVII, on the present of two roses, is light 
and pretty. 

SoNETTO CXCII. He fears he may never see Laura again. 
Probably this was written after her death. He dreams of her 
saying to him, " Do you not remember the last evening, when 
I left you with your eyes in tears ? Forced to go away from 
you, I would not tell you, nor could I, what I tell you now. 
Do not hope to see me again o?i earth." This most simple and 
beautiful sonnet has been less noticed than many which a pure 
taste would have rejected. The next is a vision of Laura's 
death. There are verses in Petrarca which will be uttered by 
many sorrowers through many ages. Such, for instance, are — 

" Non la conobbe il mondo mentre 1' abbe, 
Conobbila io chi a pianger qui rimasi." 

But we are hard of belief when he says — 

" Pianger cercai, non gib, dal pianto onore." 

There are fourteen more sonnets, and one more canzbne in 
the first series of the " Rime ; " but we must here close it. 
Of the second, third, and fourth series we must be contented 
with fewer notices, for already we have exceeded the limits we 
proposed. They were written after Laura's death, and contain 
altogether somewhat more than the first alone. Many of the 
poems in them are grave, tender, and beautiful ; there are the 
same faults, but fewer in number, and less in degree. He 
never talks again, as he does in the last words of the first, of 
carrying a laurel and a column in his bosom, — the one for 
fifteen, the other for eighteen years. 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 40/ 

Ginguene seems disinclined to allow a preference to this 
second part of the Canzoniere ; but surely it is in general far 
more pathetic, and more exempt from the importunities of 
petty fancies. He takes the trouble to translate the wretched 
sonnet (XXXIII. Part II.) in which the waters of the river are 
increased by the poet's tears, and the fish (as they had a right 
to expect) are spoken to. But the next is certainly a most 
beautiful poem, and worthy of Dante himself, whose manner 
of thinking and style of expression it much resembles. There 
is a canzone in dialogue which also resembles it in sentiment 
and feeling, — 

" Quando soave mio fido conforto," etc. 

The next again is imitated from Cino da Pistoja : what a 
crowd of words at the opening ! — 

" Quel antico mio dolce empio signore." 

It is permitted in no other poetry than the Italian to shovel up 
such a quantity of trash and triviality before the doors. 

But rather than indulge in censure, we will recommend to 
the especial perusal of the reader another list of admirable 
compositions, — "Alma felice," "Anima bella," " Ite rime 
dolenti," "Tornami a mente," " Quel rossignol," " Vago augel- 
letto," " Dolce mio caro," " Gli angeli," " Ohime ! il bel viso," 
"Che debbo io far," "Amor! se vuoi," "O aspettata," "An- 
ima, che dimostra," " Spirto gentil," "Italia mia." Few in- 
deed, if any, of these are without a flaw; but they are of 
higher worth than those on which the reader, unless fore- 
warned, would spend his time unprofitably. It would be a 
great blessing if a critic deeply versed in this literature (like 
Carey) would pubhsh the Italian poets with significant marks 
before the passages worth reading ; the more worth, and the 
less. Probably it would not be a mark of admiration, only 
that surprise and admiration have but one between them, 
which would follow the poet's declaration in Canzone XVIII., 
that " if he does not melt away it is because fear holds him 
together." After this foolery he becomes a true poet again, 
" O coUi ! " etc. ; then again bad, " You see how many colors 
love paints my face with." 

Nothing he ever wrote is so tender as a reproach of Laura, 



408 FRANCESCO PETRARCA. 

after ten years' admiration, — " You are soon grown tired of 
loving me ! " 

There is poetry in Petrarca which we have not yet adverted 
to, in which he has changed the chords Kat r^v \vpy]v a-n-aa-av, — 
such as " Fiamma del ciel," " L' avara Babilonia," " Fontana 
di dolor." The volumes close with the " Trionfi." The first, 
as we might have anticipated, is " II Trionfo d' Amore." The 
poem is a vile one, stuffed with proper names. The " Triumph 
of Chastity " is shorter, as might also be anticipated, and not 
quite so full of them. At the close, Love meets Laura, who 
makes him her captive, and carries him in triumph among the 
virgins and matrons most celebrated for purity and constancy. 
The " Triumph of Death " follows. 

This poem is truly admirable. Laura is returning from her 
victory over Love ; suddenly there appears a black flag, fol- 
lowed by a female in black apparel, and terrible in attitude 
and voice. She stops the festive procession, and strikes 
Laura. The poet now describes her last moments, and her 
soft sleep of death, in which she retains all her beauty. In the 
second part she comes to him in a dream, holds out her hand, 
and invites him to sit by her on the bank of a rivulet, under 
the shade of a beech and a laurel. Nothing in this most beau- 
tiful of languages is so beautiful, excepting the lines of Dante 
on Francesca, as these, — 

" E quella man' gia tanto desiata, 
A me, parlaiido e sospirando, porsel'^ 

Their discourse is upon death, which she tells him should 
be formidable only to the wicked, and assures him that the 
enjoyment she receives from it is far beyond any which life 
has to bestow. He then asks her a question, which he alone 
had a right to ask her, and only in her state of purity and 
bliss — 

" She sighed, and said, ' No ; nothing could dissever 
My heart from thine, and nothing shall there ever. 

If, thy fond ardor to repress, 
I sometimes frowned (and how could I do less ?), 
If now and then my look was not benign, 

'T was but to save my fame and thine ; 
And, as thou knowest, when I saw thy grief, 

A glance was ready with relief.' 



FRANCESCO PETRARCA 4O9 

" Scarce with dry cheek 
These tender words I heard her speak. 
* Were they but true ! ' I cried. She bent the head, 

Not unreproachfully, and said, 
' Yes, I did love thee ; and whene'er 
I turned away mine eyes, 't was shame and fear ; 
A thousand times to thee did they incline, 
But sank before the flame that shot from thine.' " 

He who the twentieth time can read unmoved this canzone 
never has experienced a love which could not be requited, and 
never has deserved a happy one. 



INDEX. 



iENEiD, easy to show twenty bad pas- 
sages, worse in the Georgics, 48. 

Ajax and Dido, 23. 

Allegory, delight of frivolous minds, 126. 

Andreas, king, assassinated, 391. 

Annihilation, preferable to damnation, 
105. 

Apocalypse, 94. 

Asabel, "Parable of," 292-294. 

Assuntina, confession, absolution, 75. 

Atheist, tolerant, Catholic intolerant, 104. 

Attic tragedians, method of, 13. 

Auditors and readers love not the author's 
but their own opinion repeated, 40. 

Authors, life and writings contrasted, 16 ; 
glory of, best secured by unstinting 
criticism after death, 41 ; dead, in- 
creased estimation of, 89. 



Babylonians, Macedonians, Romans, 
prove no resurrection to a fallen 
nation, 34. 

Bacon, Lord, 263. 

Barnett, Ephraim, takes down the testi- 
mony of Shakspeare, his 145; memor- 
andum prefixed thereto, 145 ; his " Post 
Scriptum," 245. 

Beatrice, changes color, 66 ; character of, 
82. 

Bible, its phraseology, 25 7. 

Blake, Admiral, 263 ; his patriotism, 
265 ; abstained from party and thought 
only of his country, 265 ; his action at 
Cadiz as glorious as any of Nelson's, 
265 ; is neglected in England by Arts 
and authorities, 265 ; fought for a 
country without a king, 265 ; among 
the founders of freedom, 285. 



Boccaccio, Giovanni, illness of, i ; re- 
ceives Petrarca and Frate Biagio, i ; 
masses said for him, 2 ; describes the 
nurse Assuntina, 2 ; his promise to 
Petrarca, 2 ; holocaust of the " De- 
cameron," 2 ; not jealous of Dante, 2 ; 
story of the truffle dog, 7 ; his dis- 
temper of the eyes, 10; opinion of 
Florentine girls, 1 1 ; is advised to weed; 
out his "Decameron," 12; compares 
the great poet to the original man of 
the Platonists, 16 ; he is double, 16 ; 
his opinion on the Greeks and Romans, 
27; on the birthplace of great poets, 
28 ; his blessing on Francesco, 28 ; 
views of philosophy and religion, 31 ; 
reflections upon death, 34 ; his visit 
to Rome, 35 ; his canons of criticism, 
39 ; his reception by Seniscalco, 41 ; 
his friend, Acciaioli, 41 ; his view of 
the Psalms of David, 47 ; of the sonnet, 
48 ; of the horses of the ancients, 52 ; 
education completed in France, 72 ; 
prefers his own country, 73 ; his opin- 
ion of Beatrice, 82 ; of tragedy, 82 ; 
opinion of the Englishman and French- 
man, 87 ; of Florentines, 88 ; remarks 
on bariaarous towns, 88; visit to the 
villa of Dante, 90 ; his lines, " Depart- 
ure from Fiametta," 95 ; reflections 
upon a chest of letters, 96 ; his story 
of the Nun and Fra Biagio, 100; re- 
flections upon the Catholic religion, 

105 ; his last morning with Petrarca, 

106 ; prayer to the Virgin, 107 ; lines 
on return of health, 107 ; annunciation 
of his health, 112 ; his verses, " To my 
Child Car lino," 115; his books in the 
tower of Certaldo, 117; resolves to 
preserve the "Decameron," 117; in- 
vention of macaroni in his day, 117; 
his prayer to Laura and Fiametta, 117; 
his vision, 11S-120; his cat, 122; his 



412 



INDEX. 



emphasis of sympathy, 124; died a 
good Catholic, 128 ; the alleged jeal- 
ousy of Boccaccio and Petrarca, 133 ; 
always called Petrarca his master, 136 ; 
picture of the gentle Ermissenda, 136 ; 
his immortal work, 388 ; friendship for 
Petrarca, 390; relative quality of their 
genius, 390 ; sends " Divina Com- 
media" to Petrarca, 394; mistaken 
regrets at the close of his life, 394 ; 
not appreciated, 399. 

Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury, discon- 
tented politicians, 25S. 

Bonaparte, seldom just toward an enemy, 
251 ; his "Catechism" adapted to the 
Middle Ages, 252 ; a squanderer of 
national resources, 252; his military 
blunders, 253 ; loses all by over- 
grasping, 255. 

Books, how the best affect the public, 

^44- ... 

Brougham, Lord, his opinion of Csesar, 
Cromwell, and Milton, 249; glances at 
greatness, 256; his manner distorted 
by sarcasm, 25S ; variety and greatness 
of his talents, 258. 

Byron, not a " mere rhymer," 269 ; char- 
acteristics of his poetry, 368. 

Burke, the wisest except Bacon, 260, 



C^SAR, Landor's admiration of, 249 ; 
excellence of his style, 249 ; compared 
to Cromwell, 250. 

Campbell, poet, reference to, 263 ; his 
compilation of Petrarca, 372. 

Canning, his brilliancy, 260 ; term 
" scamp " applied to him, 270. 

Catholicism, " touched to the quick," 
67. 

Cato, the sole guardian of purgatory, 38. 

Catullus, sketch of his life, 325 ; poems 
edited by Dcering, 325 ; contempo- 
raries and imitators, 326-328 ; criti- 
cism of his poetry, 326-365 ; poetry 
better than most of the Augustan age, 
331; called the " learned," 332 ; com- 
pared to Milton, 333-338 ; compared 
to La Fontaine, 333 ; translates Sap- 
pho's ode, 351 ; compared to Virgil, 

369, 370- 
Canonico Casini, a worthy priest, 74. 
Certaldo, an old burgess of, 102. 
Charles of Luxemburg, his " sweet, 

strange action," 387. 



Church, the, luxury and rapacity of, 31. 

Churches, Anghcan and Catholic, rela- 
tion of, discussed, 131. 

Cicero, his energy not always in the 
right place, 256. 

City, founder of, less than a poet, 87. 

Clement VI., superior to his predeces- 
sors, 385 ; confers a priory on Petrarca, 

385. 

Clergy, Anglican, triple duties of, 130. 

Colhns, William, excellence of his " Has- 
san," 323 ; surpassed by Burns and 
Scott in idylic poetry, 323. 

Colonna, Giacomo, friend of Petrarca, 
37S ; his bravery, 378; made bishop 
of Lombes, 378. 

Commandment, cast down by the liter- 
ary from over their communion table, 

134- . . 

Communities, small, morals and hap- 
piness of, 69. 

Confessors, circuitous ways of, 'j']. 

Crimes against society, most heinous, 

133- 

Criticism, its province and office, 39. 

Critics, their office in bringing to light 
the writings of others, 44. 

Cromwell, his sincerity, 250; next to 
Alfred as a ruler, 250 ; the shadow of 
his name, 254 ; Landor's inscription 
for a statue of, 258 ; bravely humane 
and tranquilly energetic, 265 ; greater 
than all things btlt his country, 265 ; 
vindicated the nation from double 
slavery, that of prince and priesthood, 
265 ; his body treated as the vilest 
malefactor's, 265. 

Crown and gallows, sovereign remedy, 
172. 



D. 



Dante, commandment kept in regard 
to him, 3; a twentieth of the "Di- 
vina Commedia " good, 4; sixteen 
twentieths of the Inferno and Purga- 
torio detestable, 4; apology for him, 
6 ; a string of satires, 6 ; imprecations 
of the Pisans, 6; best apology for his 
poetical character, 6; his best thirty 
lines, 16; his own features reflected in 
Ugliono, 16; his story of Francesca, 
16 ; Inferno immoral and impious, 17; 
his exultation and merriment over suf- 
fering, 17; compared with ^schylus 
and Homer, iS ; his powers of lan- 
guage prodigious, 20 ; his description 



INDEX. 



413 



of Mahomet, 21 ; Inferno compared 
to Homer, 22 ; Inferno, architectural 
fabric of, 22 ; compared with the 
Odyssea, 23 ; Purgatorio and Para- 
diso, pictures from church and chapel 
walls, 23; discussion of, resumed, 36 ; 
estimate of him by the Florentines, 
45 ; had no suspicion of his own su- 
periority, 46 ; no tautologies in his 
poetry, 46 ; his relation to Virgil, 48 ; 
discussion of, resumed, 62 ; Paradiso 
preferred to the other sections, 63 ; 
reverence of his name, 88 ; conversa- 
tion with Giotto, 88 ; compared with 
Boccaccio, 98 ; his habit of vitupera- 
tion, 99 ; grand by his lights, not shad- 
ows, 103; he borrowed less from his 
predecessors than the Roman poets 
did from theirs, 104. 

Death lays his rose on the cheek, 277. 

"Decameron," stories of, compared with 
the poetry of Petrarca, 390. 

" De Monarchia," 94. 

" Divina Commedia," 394, 399 ; its 
place in literature, 399. 

Drake, Admiral, 263. 

Dreams, peculiarities of Landor's, 286. 



" Earth, Italy, and Heaven," tripartite 

poem, loi. 
Egypt, fatal to the renown of conque- 
rors, 251. 
Emoluments of the bishopric of London 

more than that of twelve cardinals, 

130. 
England, her generals and admirals, their 

rank and services, 263. 
English history, suppression of living 

figures in, 265. 
English nation, undue interest in politics, 

264. 
Englishmen, character of, 85 ; compared 

with Italians, 87; always prefer the 

true and modest to the false and 

meretricious, 254. 
Engraver, his work rejected by the editor, 

144. 
Ennius and Lucilius, 21. 
Episcopacy, persecuting and intolerant, 

250. 
Epitaph, " He loved," better than " He 

killed," 44. 
Example, bad, of a great man, 5. 
Expression, clearness of, 13. 



F. 

Fame and celebrity, difference of, 125. 

Florentines, first syllable in proper names 
omitted, 29. 

Florentine girls, their mode of dress cen- 
sured, 10. 

Fortune, ill, many ties, — good, few and 
fragile ones, 22. 

Fox (C. J.), his genius and many ac- 
complishments, 270. 

French, its "nasty nasalities," 62. 

Friendship and Fortune, 115 ; metaphor- 
ical description of, 287; has all the 
attributes of love, except the bow, 
quiver, and arrows. 



Galeotto, present meaning of the ap- 
pellation, 37. 

Gargarelli, Maria, story of, 79. 

Genius, flaw in the title-deeds, 104. 

Germans, compared with the French, 72. 

Ghibellines, Guelphs, and the " Decam- 
eron," 102. 

Girls, naturally pure-minded, 77. 

Giovanna, queen, acquitted of crime by 
the pope, 392. 

Giovanni da Ravenna, interest of Pe- 
trarca in, 397. 

Giovanni Visconti, defies the pontificate, 

393- 

Glaston, Doctor, his admonition to the 
clergy, 208; his advice to young men 
in regard to poetry, 22S ; Sir Thomas 
Lucy advises Shakspeare to study his 
verse, 229. 

Good out of evil, gift of elevated minds, 
97 ; good things often passed and 
forgotten, when lacking dignity and 
beauty, 256. 

Gough, Sir Silas, chaplain of Sir Thomas 
Lucy, 151 , assists at the examination 
of Shakspeare, 151 ; his skill in venison 
tested, 152; threatens Shakspeare with 
banishment, 153; urgent for the pris- 
oner's committal, 155; suggests pair- 
ing of the ears, and branding of the 
forehead, 187 ; jealous of the reputa- 
tion of his sermons, 198 ; his encoun- 
ter of wit with Shakspeare, 204 ; quotes 
the dean's song of the " Two Jacks," 
230 ; his opinion on epitaphs, 234 ; 
urges the abandonment of Hannah 
Hathaway, 241 ; visits Hannah Hath- 



414 



INDEX. 



away's mother, 245 ; threatens to 
force Shakspeare's father to prosecute 
him for horse-stealing, 245 . 

Greatness, pernicious to keep up the il- 
lusion of in wicked men. 

Great men, tutelar, 262. 

Great thoughts, reappearance of, 104. 

Grief, " great grief, few tears," 157. 

Gustavus Adolphu?, the greatest king 
the world ever beheld, 264. 



H. 



Hatred and pity, compared, 82. 
Heads of confession, a mouthful, 132. 
Heart and imagination, office of, in 

poetry, 98. 
Hell, inscription on portal of, 23. 
Hemans, Mrs., reference to, 263 ; " Ivan " 

and " Casablanca," 367. 
Heroines, in Spanish convents, only 

French, 280. 
Heroism, some in Spanish cities, 280. 
Historians, English, 262. 
History, its part in criticism, 91. 
Hofer, the greatness of his patriotism, 

251 ; compared to Washington and 

Kosciusco, 284 ; " the death of," 283- 

285. 
Holy Church, improvement upon con- 
fession, "J"]. 
Holy Virgin, worship of, 66 ; prayer to, 

107. 
Homer, lived prior to letters in Greece, 

26. 
Honor, laws of, in France, 214. 
Horace, felicity in the choice of words, 

94. 
Horace's "Journey to Brundusium," 39. 
Hymns to the Creator, earliest poetry, 

25. 
Hyperboreans, mounted instruments in 

use, 27. 



Ice, in summer, 66. 

Ideas, their expression nearly the same 
when they strike like chords of sym- 
pathy, 256. 

Imagination and fancy, backward flight 
of, 36. 

Imitation, not weakness but sympathy, 
104. 

Inez, a character in "Santander," 
272-281. 



Innocence, found only in little children, 

67. 
Intellectuality, compared with sympathy, 

124. 
Invective, office of, 104. 
Italy, government of, 70 ; every man's 

land, JT^ ; swarms with robbers, 391 ; 

number and ability of her statesmen, 

393- 

Italian, advantages in versification com- 
pared with the Latin, 52. 

Italians, their good nature, 382. 



J- 

Jenner, his place as a benefactor, 259. 
" Jeribohaniah," 295-297. 
Jesus Christ, compared with Jupiter, 38. 
Johnson, Dr., his prejudices, 335. 



K. 



King, should never be struck unless in 

a vital part, 253. 
Kosciusko, 284. 



L. 



Lampooners, character of, 92. 

Landor, Walter Savage, his defence 
against the "Quarterly Review," 267; 
never called Bonaparte a " blockhead," 
nor Pitt a "villain," nor Fox a 
"scoundrel," nor Canning a "scamp," 
268, 269 ; few writers less obnoxious 
to rudeness, 270 ; remembers the fable 
of Phsedrus, 270, 271. 

Landseer, Edwin, exercises dominion 
over all the beasts of the field, 399. 

Laura, daughter of Audibert de No- 
ves, 376 ; was married to Hugh de 
Sade, 376 ; the passion of Petrarca 
awakened on the marriage morn, 376; 
the sonnets addressed to her, 376 ; 
some doubted her existence, 377 ; her 
name played upon by her lover, 378 ; 
seldom met her lover, 379 ; excelled 
all the ladies of her day in grace of 
manner, 379 ; her life in danger, 379; 
meets her lover, 379 ; three canzoni 
on the eyes of Laura, the " Three 
Graces," 380 ; Simone Memmi incorpo- 
rates her features into his sacred com- 
positions, 380; her portrait painted in 
1339, when she was thirty-tvsro years old, 
381 ; retains the charms of youth when 



INDEX. 



415 



the mother of nine children, 3S1; in- 
formation of her is conveyed to her 
lover, 385 ; reports of her melan- 
choly, 3S6 ; is pleased with the return 
of Petrarca, 386 ; Charles of Luxem- 
burg salutes her at a ball, 38 7 ; excites 
the envy of her lover, 38 7; in her 
fortieth year, 387; final separation 
of the lovers, 387; gazes upon the 
bridal robe in which she captivated 
the author of her immortality, 388 ; 
her husband illiterate, coarse, morose, 
388 ; news of her death conveyed to 
Petrarca, 388 ; dies on the day and 
the hour of their first meeting, — her 
marriage morn, 388 ; third anniver- 
sary of her death, 391 ; compared to a 
Cariatid of stainless marble, 394 ; no 
mention of her children by her lover, 
396; celebrated in the dialogues of 
Petrarca, 400 ; sonnets on her death, 
408, 409. 

Leghorn, the name, how originated, 373. 

Logic, an old shrew, 13. 

Love, the, of Petrarca, Boccaccio, and 
Dante, 96. 

Lucretius, vituperation of, 104 ; his vig- 
orous verses, 370, 

Lucy, Sir Thomas, his examination of 
Shakspeare, 151 ; threatens to rid 
the country of him, 153; examines 
Joseph Carnaby, 159; commands the 
papers taken from the prisoner to be 
read, 167 ; advises the lad to study, 
168 ; criticisms on " The Maid's 
Lament," 171 ; misconstrues Shak- 
speare's dialogue between two shep- 
herds, 1 75 ; his exhortation to Shak- 
speare, 1 76 ; examines Euseby Treen, 
a witness, 178; reproves the prisoner 
for personating royal characters, 183 ; 
expounds the dignity of bucks, swans, 
and herons, 185 ; is minded to save 
Shakspeare, 186; good saying attrib- 
uted to, by Shakespeare, 187 ; his dia- 
logue with the prisoner in regard to 
Dr. Glaston, 191 ; inquires if Shak- 
speare is popishly inclined, 202 ; de- 
clares to Sir Silas that the boy shall 
not be hanged, 205 ; his verses on 
Chloe, 219 ; on the same with a quince, 
222 ; with a gillyflower, 223 ; compli- 
mented by Queen Elizabeth on his 
verses, 224 ; quotes Sir Everard Star- 
key's lines on FannyCarew, 231; quotes 
Mistress Anne Nanfan's answer to his 
poetical address, 237; and his reply, 



238; insists upon Shakspeare's aban- 
doning Hannah Hathaway, 242 ; is 
disappointed, 243. 



M. 

Madonna Laura, 112. 

" Maid's Lament, The," contents of the 
second paper found in the pockets of 
Shakspeare, 169. 

Man of genius, avoid censure of, before 
the young, 89. 

Man, guiltless, may feel the pangs of the 
guilty, 157. 

Manufacturing town of England, con- 
tains more crime than the four con- 
tinents, 131. 

Marlborough, Duke of, 263. 

Marsyas, flayed by Apollo, 89. 

Mazarine, ruler of France, twisted about 
Cromwell's finger, 254. 

Memmi, Simone, character of his art, 
380 ; paints the portrait of Laura, 3S1. 

Mermaid, song of, 165. 

Merman, song of, 166. 

Meretrice, 94. 

Merit, its origin, 382. 

Merits, first discovered among the 
church-yard nettles, 43. 

Milton, the energy and elegance of his 
English, 256 ; style, stateliness of, 
257; compared to Pohtian, 330; his 
" Paradise Regained," 333, 334, 336; 
Wharton's and Johnson's opinion of, 
335 ; " Treatise on Prelaty," 336; his 
extraordinary oversight, 337 n. ; com- 
pared to Homer, 337 ; to Catullus, 339 ; 
" Comus," extravagance of, 339. 

"Miser Catulle" and '' Sirmio," most 
perfect poems in the Latin tongue, 52. 

Monarchy universal, not practicable, 67. 

Moscow, its jealousy of St. Petersburg, 

253- 
Mugnone villa of Dante, 90. 
Muscovite empire, its extremities easily 

broken off, 253. 



N. 



Nafan, Mistress, her answer to Sir 
Thomas Lucy's poetical idea, 237. 

Names, the spelling of, not to be rashly 
meddled with, 374. 

Napoleon, why Frenchmen honor him, 
26^. 



4i6 



INDEX. 



Nations, discussion of, 70, 72. 
Needles, in the age of Elizabeth, 168 «. 
Nelson, Admiral, 263. 
Nero, the pestilential dogstar, 9 ; mo- 
tive for burning Rome, 9. 
Nightingale, estimation of, in Italy, 85. 



O. 



OuDiNOT, his grenadiers frighten the 

menagerie of monkeys, 254. 
Ovid, had the finest imagination of all 

the ancient Romans, 51 ; truest tact 

in judging poetry, 51. 



Papacy, the, usurpation of, 65 ; cause 
of Italian misery, 70. 

Parent, duties of, 396. 

Parliament, issue of Act of Grace in re- 
gard to eating, 129. 

Peel, Sir Robert, how popular, 260 ; 
changed his sentiments honestly and 
always for the better, 260 ; refused the 
title of nobility, 260; not enriched by 
the spoils of his country, 260 ; con- 
trasted with Walpole, 260 ; a man 
virtuous and friendly in private, 260 ; 
a monument proposed at public ex- 
pense, 261 ; schools and almshouses 
the best inscription to his memory, 
261. 

" Pentameron," reasons for publishing 
it, ix ; the booksellers say it must be 
called by this title, ix ; translated by 
the best hand, ix ; the five dialogues 
written by neither of the interlocutors, 
xi ; the "Interviews" took place in 
Boccaccio's villa, xi ; authentic ac- 
count of what passed between the 
author's countrymen, Giovanni and 
Francesco, xi ; death of Giovanni three 
years after the "Interviews," xii ; 
death of Francesco three months later, 
xii. 

Persia conquered yet rises again, 35. 

Petrarca, Francesco, his banishment 
from Florence, 2 ; malice and de- 
traction strangers to him, 4 ; views 
on the structure of sentences, 12 ; 
compares the Italian with the Latin 
language, 12 ; his advice to Boccaccio 
in regard to style, 13 ; remarks on 
men of high and low stature, 13 ; 



opinion of great painters, poetry, and 
criticism, 14 ; his idea of what is 
Ciceronian, 14 ; criticism of " Lisa- 
betta and Gismonda," 18 ; good poem, 
definition of, 19; assertion that the 
poet builds better than he knows, 19 ; 
is crowned in the capital of the 
Christian world, 21 ; the ties which 
bound him to Dante, 22 ; banishment 
of the two families on the same day, 
22 ; saw Dante but once, 22 ; views 
on the subjugation of nations, 30 ; 
gives the Florentine method of pro- 
per names, 30 ; view of the Church, 
31 ; memory of Laura, 33 ; reflections 
on love, 34 ; gives the view of the 
ancients in regard to indecency, 44 ; 
comparison of Virgil and Dante, 51 ; 
Sunday morning at Certaldo, 54-59 ; 
is called the Crowned Martyr, 60 ; 
quaternion, 95 ; found dead in his 
library, 135 ; last words of, 135 ; his 
daughter, Ermissenda, 136 ; reasons 
for not Anglicizing his name, .372 ; 
his ancestry, 374 ; changes his name 
from Petracco, 374 ; taken to Vau- 
cluse, J 75 ; his early love of the 
classics, 375 ; educated at Montpelier, 
375 ; first attempts at poetry, 376 ; 
poetry neglected by Italian scholars, 
377 ; his " Africa," its barrenness, 
377; invited to Naples, 381 ; crowned 
laureate at Rome,' 382 ; ill treated by 
the populace, 382 ; is alsove the poets 
of his age, 382 ; his resemblance to 
Abelard, 383 ; love of liberty, 384 ; his 
dream, 385 ; made private chaplain to 
Queen Giovanna, 386 ; declines the 
office of Apostolic secretary, 386 ; 
leaves Naples, 386 ; is disappointed in 
Rienzi, 387 ; takes his farewell of 
Laura, 387 ; visits his birthplace, 
391 ; honors paid to him, 391 ; his 
property restored by the Republic of 
Florence, 391 ; is regarded as a wiz- 
ard by pope Innocent, 392 ; his em- 
bassy by the emperor Charles, 393 ; 
resides at Linterno, 393 ; is jealous of 
Dante's genius, 394 ; his children, 
lack of interest in, 395 ; illness at 
Venice, 398. 

Phffidrus, fable of, 270. 

Philosophers, deserve a monument, 262 ; 
in most places unwelcome, 262. 

Pievano Grigi to the reader, 128. 

Pindar, and Attic tragedians, method of, 
13- 



INDEX. 



417 



Pitt, wars with France to please the 
king, 269. 

Platonic, its true meaning, 383. 

"Flatonis Principia," poem, 331. 

Pleasure, sensation of health after long 
confinement, 1 1 2. 

" Plica Polonica," 89. 

Poetry, its origin, 25 ; hymns to the 
Creator, 25 ; early hymns called upon 
the Deity for vengeance, 25 ; Chryses 
in the Iliad, 25; David in the 
Psalms, 25 ; level countries unfavor- 
able to its production, 27 ; beauties as 
well as blemishes considered, 37 ; com- 
pared with music, 48 ; like game, im- 
forbidden to persons of condition, 214. 

Poet, what constitutes a great one, 103. 

Poets, those gone only warm us, those 
that remain fever us, 21 ; their mu- 
tual estimates, 136 ; compared to 
adders, 168. 

Pope, infallibility of, 66. 

Popery, praying for the dead, 1 70. 

Potency of the French tragic verse, 216. 

Power, one-man, 8. 

Praise, echo of, 14; and censure, the 
generous and ungenerous usef of, 21. 

Prayers for rain on every Sabbath, 130. 

Priesthood, its iniquity tending to the 
utter abandonment of religion, 31. 

Princes, their one apothegm, 68. 



O. 



" Quarterly Review," Landor's con- 
troversy with, 268. 

Queen Elizabeth, her talk with Earl of 
Essex, 146. 



R. 



Raffaellino degli Alfani, story 
of, 121. 

Republics, spirit of, omnipresent, 68. 

Rhetoric, escape from, 13. 

Richard de Bury, his great learning, 85. 

Richard the Thhd, his service to the 
nation, 264. 

Rienzi, his vanity, 389 ; likeness to 
Napoleon, 389 ; regret for his fall, 
390 ; imprisoned at Prague, 392 ; his 
restoration to power, 392. 

Rodney, Admiral, 263. 

Rome, accursed, doomed to eternal ster- 
ility, 34 ; goose only not degenerated. 



35 ; last city to rise from the dead, 
35; wretched days of, 71. 
Romily, Samuel, the sincerest patriot of 
his day, 260. 



Saint Francesco and Poverty, 21. 

Saint Simon Peter's divinity, examina- 
tion of the poet, 64. 

Santander, a story of, 272-2S2. 

Seniscalco, absolute ruler, yet absolute 
master of his time, 41. 

Sentence, most beautiful in all Latinity, 

94- 

Ser Geofreddo (Chaucer), greatest genius 
of English literature, 87. 

Shakspeare, William, is one of four pre- 
eminently great men, 137; cause of 
his hegira, 141 ; motive in writing, 141 ; 
criticism of his Jew, 147 ; attends thefu- 
neral of Spenser, 147 ; not permitted to 
throw his pen and poem into the grave 
with the other poets, 148 ; is recognized 
as player, not as author, 148 ; Jacob's 
letter concerning him concluded, 148 ; 
is raised to the company of the Queen's 
Players, 148; his examination, 151 ; 
brought into the great hall at Charle- 
cote, 151 ; accused of deer stealing, 
151 ; venison table produced against 
him, 151 ; his appeal to Sir Thomas, 
151; view of prayer, 151 ; retort to 
Sir Silas Gough, 156 ; dialogue be- 
tween him. Sir Thomas, and Sir Silas, 
157; he begs to be committed, 157; 
witnesses summoned against him, 15S ; 
he finds a bit of discrepancy in the 
testimony, 159; outline of plays found, 
164, 71. ; recites " The Mermaid," and 
"The Merman," 166; papers found 
in his pockets, 167; "The Owlet," 
167 ; is advised by Sir Thomas Lucy, 
168; his poem "The Maid's La- 
ment," 169; is threatened with the 
gallows, 172 ; he moves them to tears, 
174; is accused of counterfeiting kings 
and queens, 183; it goeth against Sir 
Thomas to hang him, 185 ; his com- 
mitment proposed, 186 ; his reply to 
Sir Thomas deserves letters of gold, 
187; Sir Thomas says he shall not 
die, 187; Sir Silas suggests pairing of 
the ears and branding of the forehead, 
187 ; Sir Thomas begs to know how 
he may cease to disgrace the county. 



27 



4i8 



INDEX. 



1S7; he points out the conflicting tes- 
timony, 1S7 ; makes his own plea, 
18S ; flaw in tlie testimony of Treen, 
189; is accused of suborning the wit- 
nesses, 190 ; his narration, 192 ; dia- 
logue between him and the Oxford 
preacher, 193 ; dines with Dr. Glas- 
ton, 194; reports the sermon of Dr. 
Glaston to Sir Thomas, 197 ; not po- 
pishly inclined, 202 ; encounter of wit 
with Sir Silas, 203, 204 ; is advised by 
Sir Thomas Lucy to copy the French 
drama and avoid tragedy and comedy, 
215 ; his verses on a "Sweet Brier," 
220 ; lines to Sir Thomas, 224 ; ad- 
vice in case of sparing his life, 229 ; 
song of the " Two Jacks," 230; his 
release commanded by Sir Thomas, 
242 ; is warned against the company 
of Hannah Hathaway, 242 ; the Book 
of Life placed in his hands, he must 
touch it with both lips, 242 ; is com- 
manded to swear, 243 ; his vow not to 
forget or desert his Hannah, 243 ; in- 
cites the wrath of Sir Silas and Sir 
Thomas, 243 ; his sudden flight, 244, 
twelve days after the flight, 245 ; Han- 
nah's doleful plight about him, 245 ; 
his mother and Hannah admonished 
to forget him, 245 ; the sorrel mare 
on which he fled his father's, 245 ; ac- 
cused of horse-stealing, 245 ; his father 
bound over as his prosecutor at the 
next assizes, 245 ; the futurity of his 
genius, 255 ; is called the only uni- 
versal poet, 367. 

Shelley, reference to, 383, «. 

Sidney, Philip, 263. 

Simon and Master Adam, dialogue be- 
tween, 39. 

Sincerity, hatred of, 112. 

Solitude and Nature, influence of, 84. 

Sonnet, the, adapted to the languor of 
love, 48 ; how poetasters are using it, 
49. 

Sophocles, i^Eschylus, Homer, 98. 

Southey, his hostility to Bonaparte, 269 ; 
studious of classical models, 368 ; mer- 
its of his "Roderick" as compared 
with "Marmion," 368. 

Sovereigns, their relative greatness, 262. 

Spenser, Edmund, fugitive from Ire- 
land, 146 ; compared with ancient and 
modern poets, 146 ; interview between 
Spenser and Essex, 146 ; his death, 
146. 

Statues, places most suitable for, 259. 



Story, two ways of completion, 129. 
Style, usually foUovys the conformation 
of the mind, 257. 



Tautology, bad in all tongues and all 
times, 47 ; Psalms of David, 47. 

Tennyson's "Godiva," 323. 

Theocritus, Idyls of, 301-324; best 
German editions of, 301 ; doubts of 
genuineness, 301 ; sketch of his life, 
304 ; imitated by Virgil, 305 ; by Mil- 
ton, 307 ; compared with Milton, 308 ; 
Virgil's translations, 312 ; has little 
sublimity, 319; beautiful thoughts in 
his Pastorals, 324. 

Theology, the mother of violence, 262 ; 
kings were her lackeys, 262. 

Thomson, James, beautiful descriptions 
in his "Seasons," 323; deficient in 
delineation of character, 323. 

Thought, does not separate man from 
the brutes, — brutes think, 256. 

Thoughts, renovating and cheerful, 35. 

Thrace and Scythia, lands of fable, 26. 

Thracians, worn-out wonders, 27. 

Time, powerless over thoughts in their 
cabinet of words, loi ; reckoned in 
sleep as in heaven, 118. 

Tower at Certaldo, description of, 117. 

Towns, barbarous, , do not know their 
own great men, — the towns of Italy 
reverence theirs, 88. 

Tradition, we admire by it, 14. 

Treen, Euseby, a witness against Shak- 
speare, 178; his evidence, 179; his 
fright on beholding the deer-stealers, 
182. 

Truth, only unpleasant in its novelty, 
46 ; gagged by theology, 262. 



U. 



Urban, Pope, fixes his residence at 

Rome, 397. 
Usurpers, often the greatest and best of 

princes, 264. 

V. 

Venice, is among cities what Shak- 

speare is among men, 285. 
Verses, stolen, get bruised and bitten 

like stolen apples, 103. 
Virgil and Hesiod compared, 47 ; Virgil 



INDEX. 



419 



frost-bitten, 47 ; his kindness to dumb 

creatures, 53. 
Virtue cannot drive out sickness and 

sorrow, 396. 
Vow, fulfilment of, 8. 



W. 

Walpole, Robert, his talent for busi- 
ness, 260. 

Warnings, given at all times of life, 43. 

Wellington, Duke of, 263 ; his de- 
spatches, knowledge, sense, and wis- 
dom displayed in, 267; cannot make 
his actions greater than they are, 26S ; 
Landor commends the purity, concise- 
ness, and manhness of his style, 268. 

Westminster Abbey, not suitable for 
statues of warriors and statesmen, 261. 



Wilkes, John, excited more enthusiasm 
than Hampden, 264. 

Women, foibles of, 11. 

Words, last of the preacher and the 
hanged, 206. 

Wordsworth, William^ his " Michael," 
323 ; beauty of his idyls in the " Ex- 
cursion," 323 : always contemplative, 
but never creative, 367. 

Work and recreation, offices compared, 

10!. 

Writers, celebrated, how to speak of 
them publicly, 64. 



Z. 



Zeno, worthy a place in the gallery of 
Lucullus, 262. 



University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



p|Sl.iiffl 




-iii...^' 












